


Outlast Arkham

by BadBlond099



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham (Video Games), Batman: Arkham Knight Genesis (Comics), Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Attempted Burning Alive, Attempted Mpreg, Blood and Violence, Burning alive, Cannibalism, Crossover, Disembowelment, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Loss of Identity, Loss of Limbs, Necrophilia, Non-Consensual Bondage, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Other, Outlast: Whistleblower, Sexual Violence, outlast - Freeform, which is really scary cuz this is NOT possible in this universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-01-13 11:41:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 49,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21243515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadBlond099/pseuds/BadBlond099
Summary: The dark aftermath of Knightfall (from the end of Arkham Knight) with an Outlast twist.*Edited and updated on 8-25. Content has barely changed, mostly just fixed little discrepancies.





	1. Return to Arkham - Jason Todd

**Author's Note:**

> Hallo! Fair warning from the get-go: I'm a twisted soul who loves all things of the horror genre. Couple that with a love for gaming and comics and this horrible creation becomes a thing.
> 
> For those of you who know of the Outlast series, you've already got your warning. This won't follow the games EXACTLY, but basically you can anticipate the worst of each scenario. I just decided to have a little fun with it by repurposing it for the Bat Boys.
> 
> For those of you who don't know of the Outlast series...WARNING! THIS STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC SCENES OF VIOLENCE, TORTURE, AN EXTREMELY CREEPY SORT OF SEXUAL ASSAULT SITUATION (minus the actual act of sex, but trust me, it's uncomfortable), AND GROSS MISTREATMENT OF PATIENTS!
> 
> Maybe not all of that in the first chapter, but, you get the picture. 
> 
> I won't give away everyone's roles in this crossover, but I will say that Jason Todd is filling the shoes of Miles Upshur and Dick Grayson is doing the same for Waylon Park.
> 
> Anywho, enjoy!

After the assault of the Arkham Knight, the unmasking of the Batman, and his spectacular death, Gotham put itself back together piece by piece. Batman’s closest associates had to do the same. Dick Grayson and Tim Drake had it particularly hard because, with Batman’s identity revealed, there was suddenly a lot of speculation on them.

Tim had the sense to get out of Gotham after the whole mess. Barbara was alive. That was a huge relief, but Scarecrow had messed him up. He and Barbara split up, unable to even face each other after everything, but he took solace in his old friend and Barbara’s successor—Stephanie Brown—who convinced him to get out of Gotham with her. There was still some infamy for the adopted Wayne family anywhere in the world, but Tim wasn’t exactly easily recognized, which worked to his advantage. And even away, he still kept up with Dick, making sure that Gotham was safe in his absence.

Dick couldn’t turn away from responsibility, especially now that Bruce was gone. He continued his work as Nightwing, outright refusing to pick up the cowl that Bruce had left behind. Commissioner Gordon was happy to work with him and help him as he could, but his identity was inescapably compromised. So, he instead chose to abandon his name. He started going by “Ric Grey” to avoid uncomfortable recognition. The world may know who Nightwing was, but Dick didn’t need the attention when he was just trying to get by.

Jason didn’t have the same kinds of problems at all. Lucky for him (though not something most would view as a blessing), he had been pronounced dead years back. Bruce had left him a substantial amount of money upon his own passing, which allowed Jason to live comfortably, and he chose to continue his work correcting the wrongs of Gotham under the ironic guise of the Red Hood.

The three of them didn’t keep in touch, but they all knew how to get a hold of each other if necessary. Three different paths all divergent from the same place.

And then the horrors truly began.

* * * * *

-

September 17, 2019  
From: 10260110756@mutemail.com  
To: bigred69@gothmail.com  
Subject: TIP / ILLEGAL ACTIVITY AT ARKHAM ASYLUM

It’s Dick. Have to make this quick. They might be monitoring.

I did 2 weeks of security consulting at ARKHAM ASYLUM after reports of inmates going missing. All sorts of NDA’s I am very much breaking right now but seriously, fuck this place.

Terrible things happening here. Don’t understand it. Don’t believe half the things I saw. Doctors talking about fear therapy going too far, finding results that didn’t seem possible. People are being hurt and ARKHAM is making money.

It needs to be exposed.

-

Jason sighed and looked up at Arkham. The place had taken less than a year since Bruce’s passing to rebuild and it already looked like its usual nightmarish self. For Grayson to have contacted him, it had to be pretty damned important, but that didn’t make returning any easier.

For two long years, this had been the only home that Jason knew. The dank, mildewy walls of the forgotten basement hid him away from the world. Two long years and his whole identity became that of Arkham’s scorned avenger.

But according to Barbara (who really wouldn’t even look at Jason if she didn’t have to, and he couldn’t blame her), Dick had gone in under cover to figure out what was going on, and he stopped sending reports when that email was sent.

He and Dick were never really close. Too different, he’d always believed. But since Bruce’s passing, there had been a sort of understanding between them. No matter where they came from or how they became who they were, they were brothers in arms.

And yet, to ask him to come back to Arkham…

“When I find you, Dick, I’m going to kick your ass,” Jason quietly vowed as he put on his helmet and stepped out of the cab he’d swiped.

Not that he’d been on this side of Arkham since its reopening, but the place already felt off. Where was security? Was no one posted outside? No check in? Nothing?

He walked up to the main building and braced himself as his hand touched the handle of the door. He had to remember that this was different. He could leave whenever he wanted to.

He pushed the door open and was greeted by the stench of death. He quickly set his helmet to filtrate the air and began to examine the area.

No one at the counter.

Blood stains in the corner.

It was still hard to tell if this was normal.

“What was the point of rebuilding this shit-hole?” Jason muttered, a hand already waiting over the gun on his hip. “The scum that winds up here would be better off dead anyways.”

The rec-room was near the main entrance. There some low-security inmates were allowed to socialize, watch TV, play a game of chess or something. Jason started there, still looking for signs of life.

What he found could hardly be considered that.

The people in that room all looked eerily similar; shaved heads, sores and burns all over, bloodshot eyes, drool hanging from the corners of their mouths, and all of them, no matter where they were, were fixated on the television. The truly disturbing thing was that the only thing on the screen was a very old “please standby” message accompanied by a monotonous beep.

The sound quickly felt bothersome, so Jason shot the TV, prepared to handle whatever riot was sure to ensue.

But nothing changed.

In fact, one inmate had been standing disturbingly close to the TV and, upon breaking, some glass embedded in his exposed skin. Still, the man didn’t even blink.

Jason cautiously skulked through the room, waiting for the inmates to turn on him. He stopped in front of one and actually touched his neck, checking for a pulse. He was alive, but still unresponsive.

There was a door at the far end of the room that led to the upper walkway around the main lobby. The windows gave a basic idea of what was going on. There were blood stains visible on the floor below. Smears that made it seem like people had been dragged through it. He couldn’t see any corpses, but something definitely wasn’t right.

“Like this place couldn’t make my skin crawl on a normal day.” Jason checked each room as he passed, looking for any signs of, well, intelligent life.

There was a computer on in an office room, but it was stuck on an error screen.

As he got further down the hallway, the stench of rotting flesh grew strong enough that his mask couldn’t fully filter it out. He felt his heart racing as the stench got stronger. Flashes of the horrors he’d faced came to mind. The people Joker had dress up as Batman. His first kill. How the corpses had been left down there with him to rot.

“Just a little longer. See what I can find then get the fuck out of here,” he reassured himself. “Grayson got himself into this mess. He can figure his own way out. Arkham isn’t my thing any—”

The next door he opened fell open as something on the other side pushed it out toward him. His guns were already in his hands when he saw that a person skewered with a rusted metal pipe was hanging in the doorway. The sight was nearly as shocking as the smell. The person on the pike wasn’t wearing an inmate jumpsuit either. This was staff.

“…me…”

Someone was talking from further in the room. Jason wrenched up his courage and squeezed around the corpse blocking the doorway. His mask automatically clicked on night-vision to account for the lack of light in the room. Filing cabinets were knocked over or half open. Papers were strewn about everywhere. Another body against the wall. Jumpsuit. Another body halfway out the window. White coat. Doctor?

“Help…”

Jason came around the corner and found another body with a pipe run through it, but this person was still alive, trying to pull himself off the pipe. “Help…me…” the man begged when he saw Jason.

There was no helping that.

“Who did this?”

“Heh…Heheh…”

“Can you tell me?”

The man choked on his own blood and his hands fell to his sides, leaving Jason still in the dark. “Great. Indiscriminate killing in Arkham.” He went towards the far door. “Must be a Tuesday.”

He stepped back into the light and was immediately knocked to the side. He barely recovered enough to see his attacker. “Aren’t you tired of playing bulldozer, Bane?”

The oversized menace roared, his venom pumping straight into his neck. “How’d you get that back anyways? Figured hard narcotics were a no-no here these days.”

“Come here, little birdie. I’ll break your wings all over again.”

The memory of those months broke through. Bane was among the cruelest. Taking his rage for Batman out on Jason again and again.

“How about I put you out of my misery?” Jason took both guns out and fired two shots; one into Bane’s chest and the other at the tube sticking out of his neck. “Before you go, care to tell me what’s going on here?”

Bane roared again, suddenly barreling at Jason.

“Whoa, whoa, wait, what?” Jason fired off a few more shots but nothing slowed Bane down. Even without the Venom constantly pumping, he remained his swollen self. He tackled Jason, knocking the wind out of him and the pistols out of his hands. Panicked, Jason grabbed his knife and jammed it into Bane’s shoulder blade. The guy had taken at least three bullets to the chest. Even without exit wounds, he’d have to be Superman to survive that, but the knife slid right into his shoulder like it would any other person.

And yet, in spite all of the injuries, Bane hoisted Jason up like he weighed nothing and threw him through the viewing window.

Jason's shoulder caught the edge of the counter on the lower floor and hit the floor hard. The body armor absorbed only some of the impact, but it was still a rough landing. He looked up at Bane, now a floor above him.

The giant laughed.

No.

This wasn’t a normal laugh. Jason could have sworn that the edges of his mouth were warping into an impossible smile. His face, not wearing a mask for once, looked pale.

It resembled the Joker.

Jason’s helmet shut off and his consciousness went with it.


	2. Employee to Inmate - Dick Grayson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick works undercover at Arkham and finds some very disturbing things happening around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dickie-Bird's turn!
> 
> To avoid confusion, the events in this and most of Dick's chapters take place before the events in Jason's as Jason's story is based around Outlast and Dick's is based around Outlast: Whistleblower. Rather than telling them separate, though, I've elected to go back and forth so it'll be really easy to see where details cross between them.
> 
> Please mind the Tags and rating. I'm not going to include warnings for each individual chapter as it should be expected that pretty rough stuff will happen in every chapter. There will be one for-sure exception, though, when the Eddie Gluskin events occur for Dick.
> 
> I hope all you Outlast fans shudder at the memory of Gluskin.
> 
> But yes, that chapter will come with a warning beforehand as it really is just a whole lot of WOW...

This whole thing was a stupid idea. There were reports of foul play at Arkham since it had reopened, which hardly seemed new, but no one had come out since then either. The revolving door finally seemed to be effective, but somehow that felt even more disturbing. So rather than mess up a good thing, Dick elected to check it out under cover. See how Arkham really ran for the first time ever.

The whole experience was surreal. Doctors were apathetic. Security guards were merciless. The regular staff was either scared or almost as crazy as the inmates.

Dick made sure to check in with Barbara each day. He’d go to his “job,” come back to the Mansion, and download all of his found data on the old Bat-Com.

One recurring thing kept bothering him. There was some routine experiment going on in the basement of Arkham. Whatever happened down there was changing the inmates. Once people came back from down there, they looked like lepers. Their heads shaved, their skin rotting and covered in sores, and their minds…

It had been two weeks and the opportunity finally arose. A particularly dangerous patient was being moved to the basement for testing and extra security was needed to move the patient. Of course, it also meant working a little past his usual hours, and no communication with the outside was allowed on the premises, so there was no alerting Barbara.

“Please! Don’t let them take me. Don’t let them take me!” Dick stood by, watching quietly as an inmate was taken from his cell to be moved downstairs. It must have been some small time criminal. No one that he could recognize. But the man frantically fought against the men moving him. Dick readied his taser, just in case he’d have to step in, but the inmate went into a frenzy, stole a guard’s gun, and put the barrel against his own chin. “I won’t go down there. He’s down there…laughing at us…”

Dick had his stun gun at the ready. “Put down the weapon, sir, and we’ll figure this out.”

“He’s laughing at us. Always laughing at us. He said he’d save us. Said he was the answer. But that laugh. I won’t go down there. I won’t!”

“Alright. Then let’s figure this out. We can—”

But the man pulled the trigger. His brain blew out into the cell behind him and his body collapsed limply. The whole thing was awful, and yet everyone else who witnessed it hardly even blinked.

“Get the cleanup crew here,” the doctor demanded. “Guess we’ll have to move on to the next one.”

Dick had to turn away and cover his mouth to keep from hurling. This place was a nightmare. Coming here was a mistake. He had to hurry. This was the last time he was going to put up with any of it. Arkham itself was a mistake. It needed to be shut down.

“You there. Ricky, was it?”

Dick straightened up, swallowing the bile threatening to rise. “S-sir.” The doctor got disturbingly close and Dick recognized Hugo Strange. Had the old menace survived his fall a few years back? He wasnt sure if he was reassured by that fact or not.

“Our schedule has picked up. You’re part of security detail for our high threat patient, are you not?”

“R-right.”

“Well, report to cell 4-A17 in fifteen minutes. We’ll be moving him immediately.”

Dick swallowed hard and nodded. “Sir.”

This was too much for him. He saw that now. After agreeing he hurried to the server room where he had a laptop stored just in case. He punched out a warning email, nervous about getting caught. He barely knew how to begin and knew that he didn’t have much time. He tried to explain where he was and why. He could send it to Barbara, but she couldn't do much from her chair if it came down to it. Tim would know what to do…if only he were even in the country.

“Grey? Richard Grey? Report to cell 4-A17 promptly!”

“Shit.” Dick slammed the laptop shut and ran out the door only to collide with Dr. Strange. “S-sir!”

“Mr. Grey. The fifteen minutes were to ensure that you were mentally and physically prepared. What on earth were you doing in the server room?”

Dick had to come up with something quick. “I have a little experience with computer security. One of the IT guys asked me to fix something for him. It was minor. Good now.” It sounded fake to Dick, but he didn’t have anything else.

Strange eyed him curiously. “Well then. Shall we?”

Dick nodded and followed the mad scientist through Arkham. They didn’t speak the whole way. A couple more guards joined them and they met up with another three at the cell. Dick felt his nerves pulled tight. They let out a man with heavy chains cuffing his wrists and ankles. The man's face was scratched up, particularly around his right eye. Traces of silver hair peeked out of his recently shaved scalp. His one, icy blue eye found Dick and narrowed upon meeting his gaze.

"Deathstroke," Dick breathed.

“We do not acknowledge false names in here. Isn’t that right, Mr. Wilson?” Strange said, taunting the beast of a man right to his face.

"I hardly see how it matters, seeing how I'm not the only one here with an alter-ego," he said with a smug smile. Dick opened his mouth to defend himself right as one of the guards jabbed Slade in the back with a cow-prod.

“Shut up, ya creep.”

It took Slade a moment to catch his breath. Dick was honestly amazed that Arkham even had the equipment on hand to properly restrain the assassin, but still the treatment seemed...unnecessarily cruel.

Of course, Dick didn't dare speak up. He, Strange, and the rest of the guards escorted Slade to the basement.

This was it.

This was where Jason had been tortured.

The thought was enough to make Dick's skin crawl. It had gone from a hidden torture chamber to a sort of...room for experimentation.

As they walked through an isolated control room, Strange caught Dick’s shoulder as the rest of the guards walked Slade through the door. “Stay here in case he resists. Don’t worry. The glass should hold.”

Dick nodded slightly and kept his eyes on Strange, afraid that the man knew more than he was letting on.

That was his first mistake.

Slade managed to get free from the other guards and ran back at the door. It was locked, but he still slammed into the glass, not a foot away from Dick.

"Let me out of here, you little prick! This isn't some game! You don't want to allow this! You hear me?"

Slade all but lit up as multiple guards pressed cow-prods into his sides. Normal people wouldn't survive a shock like that. Hearing it happening to someone so close...someone that Dick had known for years, even if under bad circumstances. The longer it went on, the more nauseous Dick felt. He took a nervous step backward as the guards wrangled Slade back to the experiment floor; his massive body hanging limply in their hold.

“Rather unusual. Have you encountered him before?” Strange wondered.

Dick shivered like a leaf. “N-no. Must be one of those faces. Y’know?”

Strange adjusted his spectacles dubiously. “Indeed. Ah. It would seem Mr. Wilson has been secured. Care to watch?”

Against his better judgment, Dick looked to see what was going on. He needed as much information as he could get…but he didn’t see Slade, just a large cloudy cylinder where he'd been loaded in. “What’s happening?”

“Ah, check the video feed,” Strange suggested.

Dick looked down at the computer and swallowed a shout. The screen showed live feed of Slade Wilson bent backwards in the cylinder with tubes in his nose and mouth. His eye was wide open as he struggled futilely. He was completely submerged in some sort of liquid that was slowly eating into his skin.

“Enchanting, isn’t it? This process uses a mix of the fear toxin and venom, formulated by our most recent inmate. We have found that it makes the inmates docile. Effects similar to a lobotomy but still allowed by the state. It’s infinitely less intrusive.”

Dick couldn’t see what about that process looked less intrusive. And how could fear toxin and venom be anything but a recipe for disaster? “He looks like he’s in pain.”

“It is mild panic. He is now being shown hypnotic images that will calm him and ultimately make him malleable. See? He has stopped struggling.”

Dick pushed away from the monitor and looked back at the exit. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“I am very sorry to hear that, Mr. Grey.”

“I’m…I’ll leave my letter of resignation at the main desk.” He took off out the door and made a beeline for the server room. He flipped the laptop open and finished off the email. He knew who needed to see it now. Tim would get no use out of it. He wouldn’t be able to do anything about it for a long time anyways, so there was no point in worrying him.

But Jason…

Jason knew Arkham better than anyone and knew of the horrors. It was a cruel request, but if anyone could handle this…no, if anyone could put an end to this, it was Jason.

He punched in Jason’s personal email and hit send.

He barely turned around when a guard jabbed him with a cow-prod. He slammed against the desk, breaking the laptop’s screen before hitting the ground. His muscles were painfully tight. He could barely look up at Hugo Strange as the man checked the laptop.

“bigred69. Puh. You send your one lifeline message out to some fraternity brother, Mr. Grey? Or do you prefer, Mr. Grayson?”

Dick tried to get an arm under himself. He had to get up. Had to get out of there.

“Oh dear. Any young man who feels the need to run around dressed up in tights is in desperate need of mental health treatment, don’t you boys think?”

The guards all chuckled in agreement.

“And, oh, do you hear that?” Strange grabbed Dick by the hair and held his head up painfully. “Mr. Grayson here sounds like he’s willingly admitting himself into Arkham’s psychiatric ward.”

“F…Fuck you, Strange,” Dick spat.

Hugo laughed darkly and slammed Dick’s head down against the concrete floor. “Well, seeing as Mr. Grayson is now a patient here, I leave it to you men to subdue him. He looks like he may put up a fight, so feel free to shock him a few more times.”

The last thing Dick knew was the pain of the cow-prod as he blacked out.


	3. Echoes of a Scream - Jason Todd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason finds himself trapped in the same hell he'd been confined to all those years ago and the desire to leave is overwhelming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know how much people love when I rapid post, but that's going to stop with this chapter (sorry!) unless I have a LOT of time to sit down in the near future as the next chapter has already been started, but not finished.
> 
> Posting this has been my way of forcing myself back to it because I LOVE the idea and want to finish it. It's just a matter of getting all of the details right.

Jason woke up in the darkness, gasping for air. He tried to touch his face, finding that his helmet was still on. He forced it off hastily and threw it aside. Air filled his lungs, along with the putrid smell of blood and decay. He sat up and pressed a hand to the left side of his chest. He could feel a couple ribs out of place. The memory of how he’d gotten where he was came back quickly.

“Fuuuuck.”

He got to his feet, grunting as the rest of his body screamed at him for the earlier impact. There was glass all around from the broken window and…well, a few other shattered windows. “I’m going to kill Dick when I get out of here,” he vowed under his breath. 

He hadn’t even taken a step before his foot hit something soft. He looked down and nearly hurled. The corpse of a man in a security uniform was wedged beneath the counter, his stomach ripped open and his intestines spilling out. It was plain to see that Jason had been laying in the man’s blood. The man was still holding onto some document. Jason reluctantly pried it away from him and read over it.

-

ARKHAM PSYCHIATRIC WARD  
PROJECT LAUGHTER  
Case Number: 174  
Patient Alias: “Smiley”  
Consultation Dated: 2017.11.30  
Initial Date of Patient Consult: 2017.11.11  
Patient Age: Unknown  
Gender: Male  
Observing Physician: Leslie Thompkins (DBNR)

THERAPY STATUS:  
Patient claims to have progressed beyond the need for sustenance, though his body has continued to deteriorate. Psychological state still difficult to measure. Continuing stage 4 of Compound E-22 dosing.

DIAGNOSTICS:  
Spirometry revealed no bronchial accumulation.  
Hematocrit centrifuge again failed to create anti-serum for Compound E-22 still in his system.

MRI revealed arrhythmic REM/NREM cycle. Laughter in NREM state.

INTERVIEW NOTES:

“Smiley” asked about the status of testing “his” compound. This suggests a catastrophic breach in security, further evinced by “Smiley’s” claims that he knows all about Pyg’s studies in the medical ward (Note: the only “Pyg” on company records, one Lazlo Valentin, is a fellow inmate who has been granted special access to medical supplies after showing positive improvement from E-22 treatment). All orderlies and security personnel must be questioned, and video security improved to locate the source of this information.

ARKHAM PSYCHIATRIC WARD PROJECT LAUGHTER

-

Jason crumpled the document up and tossed it aside. “‘Smiley’ my ass. They’ve brought back that fucking clown!” He thought about the note about raising security and Dick came to mind. “Shit. You’d better have made it out of here in one piece…”

Speaking of leaving, Jason was eager to wash his hands of this place. At this point Gotham would be better off if he blew it all up. He’d just have to head out, collect up a hefty amount of explosives, and blow the shit-hole sky high.

He went to the exit—a pair of large wooden doors with no windows—and tried to push them open with no luck. “The fuck?” He rammed his shoulder against one of the doors and it barely budged. Something must have been blocking it from the outside. “You’ve got to be shitting me.” He turned back and felt his spirits drop a little. With his helmet broken he was already going to have to suffer through the nasty air of the place, plus his face wasn’t hidden. Even if he wasn’t fully recognizable, he still had his painful souvenir from his time spent in the basement, which many Arkham inmates were likely to recognize.

“Just my fucking luck.”

He should have brought more gear. Even some C4 would have been useful. Why did he think this would be a quick and easy job? Nothing with Arkham ever was.

No use whining now. The least he could do at this point was see if he could find out what was going on and if Grayson had made it out okay…Not that he cared…

He checked around the main floor for clues or even map and came up empty handed. At most, by venturing into the dark computer room, he discovered that he had a burner phone on his own person. It was nothing more than a flip phone (the kind of thing that could withstand nuclear fallout but would stop working if a few drops of water fell on it), but it had a pretty bright flash and a weirdly long-lasting battery. It worked as a sort of interim flashlight, but it would clearly give his position away if anyone else was around.

There was nothing around that seemed useful. Even the other corpses were all but unidentifiable and didn’t have anything but the clothes on their backs.

He made his way to the far corridor and found another document on the right in front of a gate that prevented access beyond.  
-

ARKHAM PSYCHIATRIC WARD  
PROJECT LAUGHTER  
Case Number: 136  
Patient Alias: “Bane”  
Consultation Dated: 2017.12.10  
Initial Date of Patient Consult: 1993.1.10  
Patient Age: Unknown  
Gender: Male  
Observing Physician: Dr. Hugo Strange

THERAPY STATUS:  
E-22 Compound treatment has been used to wean the patient off of Venom. Mixed usage of the drugs has stopped muscular degeneration. Signs of mental deterioration becoming less noticeable. Proceed to phase 5 of E-22 Compound treatment.

DIAGNOSTICS:  
Spirometry revealed light-to-medium bronchial accumulation. MRI scans consistent with heightened brain activity.

INTERVIEW NOTES:  
“Bane” was interviewed in restraints, following assault on guards that led to three casualties. Restraints have been altered to accommodate his enormous size.

Extensive dermal eruptions as consistent with failed E-22 Compound treatment cellular activity. He claims the skin ripped from his forehead allows for a truer way of seeing, seems to have some boyhood experience with Tuatara Lizards and their parietal eyes. He has expressed anxiety about his flesh, specifically around his lips and nose. Attending orderlies should be advised to watch for further self-mutilation.

The mental traumas he sustained while living in Santa Prisca seem to be retarding progression of the E-22 process. His predominant fixation, amplified by therapy, is a manic exaggeration of military security protocol. A continuation of both chemical and physical restraints is highly recommended.

-

“Great. Some new Joker compound is making Bane an even bigger pain in the ass. Just perfect.” Jason tossed the file aside and rattled the gate. “Could this place get any more annoying?”

He turned and stared down the other corridor. Someone was sitting limply in a wheelchair up ahead. They didn’t move. Didn’t even seem to be breathing. But it was times like these when Jason wished his helmet was still functioning. Checking vitals from afar would have been a handy trick.

No sense in cowering away. He walked past the person, keeping a weary eye on them the whole time, and crept into the open door just past him.

Inside his breath caught when he was confronted with numerous people in a similar state. Their eyes, however, followed him as he moved. “Any one of you jumps me and you’ll regret it,” he mumbled in warning. No one even blinked in acknowledgement. They continued to watch him, but they may as well have been vegetables.

Hidden in the far corner of the room was the corpse of a security guard. He checked the body and found a ring of keys. He held onto them and quietly made his way out of the room.

“Heh. Freaky ass—”

Before he had a second to think, the guy in the wheelchair lunged at him, tackling him to the floor. The man crawled on top of Jason, growling like some kind of animal.

“Fuck!” Jason kicked hard, knocking the man off before pinning him and snapping his neck. “Not doing this bullshit! You hear me Grayson? Fuck this!” He picked himself up off the floor and jogged back down the corridor angrily, pulling out the keys. He tried them all on the exit to no avail, then the gate where he swore a few more times upon finding that none of them fit. There was a card on the keyring, though, and he recalled a room back in the main area that was locked with a card reader on it. He backtracked a bit and was relieved to find that the keycard worked there.

Inside was just a janitorial closet with a single scrap of paper. “I swear to fuck, if you don’t have some helpful piece of information…”

\- 

Follow the Gospel of the Bat and seek forgiveness, less the One Who Laughs smite you where you stand.

\- 

“How? How can that fuck still be around? I thought Bruce got rid of that stupid—”

CRASH!

Jason stumbled into the darkness of the closet and waited, listening. Someone was out there. He hadn’t heard anything, though. He wanted his helmet back. This was getting ridiculous.

After a couple minutes of silence, he emerged to find that the gate had been flung open, the door completely off its hinges and a few feet away. Jason chose not to look the gift horse in the mouth and took the opportunity to get into the other corridor. Like the other side, there was just a bathroom and another room. He didn’t see the need to observe whatever horrors were in the bathroom, so he went for the door at the end of the corridor. There, there was a repetitive pounding sound. As he got close, it continued at the same rhythm. No harder no softer. It didn’t seem threatening, just…unusual. He put his hand on the doorknob and exhaled deeply.

He opened it quickly and shouted when he came face to face with an inmate. He prepared himself for an attack, but it never came. Instead, the inmate turned around and began to slam his forehead against the far wall. Jason checked the inside of the door he’d just opened to find a blood stain at the level where the man’s head was. “This place…” He hated every second he had to spend dealing with it all but couldn’t help but think about how Dick must have taken it. “Shit. I hope you finally moved past that stupid no-killing rule here. Some people just need to be put down.”

The room was connected to a surveillance room. There Jason was finally able to get his bearings a little. Aside from the few cameras that were down, the live feed showed the extent of the chaos ensuing at Arkham. The girls’ ward looked abandoned aside from Ivy’s overgrown greenery. The yard was littered with similarly deformed inmates fighting each other, getting shot by guards, murdering guards, and otherwise causing all kinds of mayhem. Inside things just looked more brutal. People were…eating each other…disemboweling each other…and worse…

What Jason didn’t see was any sign of Dick. “You’re way more trouble than you’re worth,” he muttered as he tried to pull up the feed for the cameras that weren’t working. He was no Tim Drake, but his skills were nothing to sneeze at. After all, he’d spent years working on countermeasures to all of the tech that Bruce could throw at him.

He managed to get two cameras up. One showed an elevator that let out a few inmates, proving that it was in working condition. He could use that to get back up to the main intake floor and get out.

The other camera showed some place labeled “Compound E-22 Testing Clinic.” There was an inmate there who had yet to show deformities like the rest of the residents. He was strapped into an old chair, facing away from the camera at a projection of hundreds of victims of the Joker Virus.

“The fuck?” Hugo Strange walked over to the inmate and leaned in eerily close. Just as Hugo looked like he might bite the inmate’s ear, something covered the camera. It backed up a bit to reveal a horribly familiar smile.

Jason fell backwards, his heart threatening to rip out of his chest. His head was throbbing as memories flooded it.

Pain.

Torture.

Shame.

Repeat.

But how? Drake had managed a cure. Joker’s blood was no longer an issue. And Jason had made sure to check the morgue himself when the clown prince of crime finally bit the big one.

But that laugh.

And that smile.

Just what was happening in Arkham?

Before Jason could calm himself down, the lights went out with the sound of a power surge. “Shit.” With the power out, his hopes of using the elevator were gone. He vaguely recalled a camera feed showing a circuit board in the basement. “Now I just have to find the fucking stairs, cuz this fucking place is such a fucking wonder!” Swearing and blaming the world helped him to get a hold of himself. He got back to his feet and flipped open the old cell phone to illuminate the area. He found a basic map hanging on the wall and snapped a few tiny, pixelated pictures. Thankfully the service hall was connected to the security room, and at the end of it was a stairwell to the basement.

He left the light off on his phone but kept it handy. His eyes only adjusted so much with the complete lack of light to deal with. It was pointless to keep grumbling about his helmet. No sense in looking back now. Grayson or no, he had to focus on getting out of there before he could even think about handling whatever Joker-related nightmare was going on there now.

Of course, thinking that and facing the door to the basement stairway were two very different things.

Out in Gotham the Red Hood was a name to be feared and revered. Hell, he was the vigilante who orchestrated the Gotham City takeover for Scarecrow. So why did that door still make his blood run cold?

Jason touched the scar on his cheek and swallowed the lump in his throat. No time like the present to get past his hang-ups, so he pushed the door open.

At the bottom of the stairs an obtrusive red light reflected off water. The whole basement had flooded. The poor lighting and water made it a little easier for him. At least it was less recognizable. Though his chest still felt a little tight…he brushed that off to Harley’s water-boarding therapy. The red light would at least lead him to the circuit breaker.

The water came up to his waist. He was careful to keep the phone dry as he sloshed towards the few stairs that led to the main breaker box. He barely made it to the first step out of the water when something knocked him off his feet. He dropped the phone and, thankfully, it landed on the edge of the raised area, but something pulled him by the ankle, throwing him back with tremendous force into the water. It was difficult to right himself; upon getting his head back above water, he saw a black dorsal fin moving quickly toward him.

King Shark slammed into him at full force, pushing him back against the far wall. He jammed his thumbs into the man-beast’s eyes, freeing himself, then scrambled to the nearby steps, leading to the underground security office. He bolted down the hall, vaulted over an overturned desk in the middle of the hallway, and felt around the room frantically until he found a tall metal locker and stuffed himself inside. There was nothing to do but hold his breath and wait. The room was dark enough that he was reduced to using his ears instead of his eyes to sense the threats nearby. Thankfully, King Shark was huge.

The heavy, wet footsteps drew steadily closer. A growl roaring low in the monster’s throat. After struggling to get over the overturned desk, he was close enough that Jason could tell he was in the room with him. Searching. Searching.

For a moment Jason could smell seafood on his enemy’s breath. Then the heavy footsteps moved back out of the room. Only a little after the loud stumbling past the desk did Jason leave the locker. He peered into the hall quietly only to see the silhouette of Killer Croc heading back towards the basement, instead of King Shark.

As if one giant water-monster wasn’t enough…

He felt around until he came across a radio. Getting back down the hall quietly was difficult, but he managed to make it close enough to toss the radio as far away from the circuit breaker as possible. Water splashed like a fish had been thrown into the shark tank at the aquarium. Thankfully King Shark and Killer Croc collided, and a nasty brawl ensued, giving Jason some cover noise as he waded quickly over to the circuit breaker. He retrieved his phone, then flipped the breaker.

The lights came on, even in the basement. His adrenaline kicked into overdrive as the familiar walls seemed to scream at him. No. They were echoing his screams back to him. His cries for mercy.

Frozen in place, Jason was an easy target. Croc and Shark stopped their brawl in favor of going after the fresh meat. Jason used his fear and adrenaline to jump onto King Shark’s head and launch himself towards the stairs; his only shot at freedom. He just had to get out of there.

He hit the stairs hard and picked himself up to run only to take a hard swipe to the back from Killer Croc. Blood pumping and heart pounding, he didn’t even feel it. He just rushed to the door, slammed it shut behind him, and kicked the doorknob off. A hard slam into the door hinted that their pursuit wasn’t over. Jason vaguely recalled another set of lockers in the surveillance room, so he booked it back. Stuffing himself into the first locker he could find.

There was a loud crash from the basement door breaking off its hinges.

“I’d know that blood anywhere, little bird! Hahaha! Why don’t you come back here and let me have another taste?”

Jason didn’t think about his back. Had he been bleeding? Did he leave a trail? He was screwed. This was it.

He watched through the slats in the locker, awaiting his doom.

But the opened door swung shut, revealing a haggard old man, staring right back at Jason.

“Fret not, child, for our Lord and Savior is not done with you yet! Step out into the light. I shall guide you to freedom.”

“Lock the door and maybe I’ll step out.”

The man nodded, turning around to lock the door. Jason took the opportunity to try to attack him, but the man was oddly limber and had a jagged dagger pressed to Jason’s neck in no time. “Shhh, don’t cry, Songbird. You’ll be with our Lord soon.” He proceeded to stab Jason in the neck with a syringe. The room seemed to spin. The adrenaline that had been keeping him going was fading too quickly. He’d messed up. But at least he wouldn’t have to see the hell from his past for a little while.


	4. Out of the Frying Pan... - Dick Grayson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No longer able to use the title of "employee" to protect himself, Dick wakes up to the true nightmare that is Arkham Asylum, just in time for the whole building to go even crazier than its patients.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ey! Miss me? Sorry this took so long. Between NaNoWriMo (yeah, first try, first fail...definitely gonna try again next year like the masochist that I am), holidays, my other works, and just plain obtaining the research for Outlast in the way that works best for me, this kinda went on hold for a bit.
> 
> However! The good news is that I FINALLY finished my 1st solo playthrough of Outlast 1 (usually need either a guide handy or a person reading the guide to me if only cuz my sense of direction is legendary in its uhh, badness). So I have an entire legal pad and then some full of notes for this story's sake and I'm excited about it!
> 
> Without further ado, here's the continuation of Dick's story. I'm already working on the next part for Jason, so the momentum is back! Thanks for the patience!

“Rise and shine, Mr. Grayson. It’s time for the show.”

Dick woke up feeling like he was suffering through the worst hangover of his life. His head was swimming. His vision was blurry. And he could all but taste Lex Luthor’s breath as the man leaned in so close that his hot breath tickled Dick’s ear. “What…what the hell?”

“Don’t be so surprised. Since Wayne Enterprises’ sudden loss and questionable integrity with regards to Arkham’s patients, Lex Corp has bought the company out of its shares.” He let a hand linger on Dick’s chest, making him all the more uncomfortable. “So it’s been bothering me. If Bruce Wayne was Batman, what does that make you?”

Dick struggled a bit only to feel a dull pain. He glanced down at his wrists to find that, along with the metal cuffs and leather straps keeping him in place, there was an IV cord sticking out of his right arm. His eyes followed it to what looked like a bag of blood labeled “E-22.”

“If I may be so bold as to guess, I would say that your usual inclination for witty banter suggests you’re none other than the acrobatic Nightwing. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

“Go to hell, Luthor.”

Lex smirked before slapping his hand over Dick’s eyes and slamming his head back against the seat, wrapping a strap around his forehead to further bind him to the chair. “You’ve been doing well so far, but this part requires your full attention, Pretty Bird.” He moved his hand off of Dick’s face and leaned down to whisper in Dick’s ear, “Keep your eyes open, Mr. Grayson. This is very important.”

At that, Luthor went off, leaving Dick with his head stuck in place.

A projector came on, lighting up the wall in front of him. Shortly after a crackling recording of screams and laughter played as if it was coming from the back of the seat itself. The sound felt like it was shaking Dick’s body. It made his ears ring. Made his headache so much worse. Like his skull was splitting at the sutures.

The projector showed what seemed to be liquid Rorschach images with twisted faces spliced in. He couldn’t close his eyes well. Couldn’t turn his head. After only a minute he could see the images through his eyelids whenever he was able to close his eyes.

The swimming headache quickly became a searing migraine. The sound was enough to drive him crazy. The images were bringing strange things to mind. He could no longer tell what was really there and what wasn’t.

When the projector cut off and the sound stopped, Dick was confused to find that he had been laughing along with the recordings. He tried to stop, but the action was strangely involuntary. Catching his breath, he managed to silence himself gradually as screams could be heard nearby. He struggled against the straps holding him in place until he was able to turn his head just enough to see the glass wall between himself and the next patient. He was about to look away when a splatter of blood covered the glass and the screaming stopped.

“What the fuck?”

More screams. Cries for help, pleas for mercy, and shouts of agony. All of which were interspersed with deranged laughter. Uncertain of what else to do, Dick strained against his binds. He moved so much that he noticed the chair moving with him. It wasn’t anchored to the floor. So, he threw his weight back and forth, until he rocked hard enough to topple over. The impact broke one of the chair legs as well as an armrest, giving him a little more freedom. He quickly freed his other hand then worked at his head. Getting his other leg free after that was easy.

On his hands and knees, the nausea finally set in. His skull pulsed as the images that had been projected earlier swam through his field of vision. The sound of laughter rang out like a train whistle. He pressed his forehead to the floor, praying for the sensation to end. This was awful. The worst he’d ever felt. It was enough to make him miss getting kicked around by villains when he’d messed up as a kid. Gotham, after all, had no mercy to show for children. If not for Bruce…

If not for Bruce…would he have ever been placed in that kind of danger?

When the headache finally passed, he felt unusually numb. He sat up and stared briefly at the blood stain where he’d been grinding his head against the floor, feeling somehow as if it belonged to someone else. Memories of the video the Joker had left for Batman with Jason being tortured came to mind. Dick could imagine the blood Jason spat out after taking a hit to the stomach with that damned crowbar. Dick thought just how awful it must have been. How much it must have hurt.

How his pain now couldn’t compare.

When he felt strength returning to him, he took a few deep breaths and got up. The moment he got his feet under him, the lights shut off. The darkness was enough to hide the surrounding rooms from view. The noise had settled to just distant laughter. As if some phantom were mocking him and his predicament.

In the darkness a blinking red light called out to him. He followed it to an old digital camera sitting nearby. Recorded footage confirmed, to his disgust, that Hugo Strange had been filming his suffering. Not wanting to relive it, he deleted the footage, which was apparently all that was on the camera. It returned to record mode and Dick noticed a little symbol on the screen that stood for “flash”. He tampered with buttons until the light on the camera turned on, then held the camera up, cutting into the darkness with that beam of light. What he saw around his windowed cell was enough to make him throw up. The room was cast in an eerie red glow from the sheer amount of blood and gore splattered on the glass. The camera was still rolling, though, and Dick couldn’t just stay there and pray that his email message made it out.

“Jason…Tim…Babs…if you find this, hopefully I’m still alive. Things are happening here that aren’t…They’re not right. Not humane. Something is ripping patients apart. Experiments are being done with some Compound E-22. There’s something here that’s not human. No human…no human could do this.” Dick filmed the eviscerated mess to emphasize his point. “Hugo Strange had me admitted here when he caught me sending an email to Jason. I’m on the inside and…I think the only way out of this is through. I’ve been exposed to the Compound and I watched something that seems to have lingering effects on my mentality. I hope I make it out of here. If I don’t, hopefully you’ll at least find this, find my body, and find the truth.”

That was all he had to say. In order to keep the light on, he’d have to keep the camera running.

He found the door after feeling around the glass for a bit. To his relief, it was unlocked, and he was able to get out. However, he didn’t recognize where he was and had no idea what to expect with the strange monster about, eviscerating inmates, but there was no way he was going back to wait for Luthor to keep torturing him.

The testing rooms let out into a series of corridors lined with thick plastic like a hazmat zone (which did not bode well). At least it was lit up, albeit by emergency lights. He shut off the camera but kept it handy as he paced slowly down a hall.

Voices could be heard nearby, which set Dick on high alert. He crept onward and the voices became more and more clear.

“…us?”

“Now…turn…”

“You’ll regret the day you messed with…”

Dick found the source of the sound; a large tear in the plastic just ahead. On the other side was Jack and Ace from the Royal Flush Gang, standing by excitedly as King stood over a doctor who had been strapped to a table. Dick watched in horror as King raised a knife over his head. Without thinking, Dick slapped his hand to the plastic, getting their attention.

“You. You’re not one of them, you’re one of us. Don’t pretend you’re better than us,” King warned. “We’ve been tormented for too long! Today we take back what was ours! And you! Either you’re with us, or you’re against us!” To emphasize his point, King plunged the knife into the doctor’s chest and wrenched it down towards his pelvis. The doctor didn’t seem to react to it, which was the only relief that Dick was allowed.

“I…I’m one of you…I just…I want to get out of here…”

King scoffed. “Exit’s past here, boy. Come on in. We’ll let you through.”

Dick really hated that idea. He checked further down the hall, though, and found that there was one secure door that was broken and showed no signs of turning back on. At least where the Royal Flush boys were, Dick had seen a door just behind them. It was his only shot.

He went back to the cut in the plastic and slipped through, hoping beyond hope that King would stay true to his word. Jack snickered as Dick walked nervously past him and towards the table where King had skewered the doctor.

“Come on, friend. Want to take a stab at it? It feels nice to let some rage out. It’s good for you.” King yanked the knife out of the guy and held it out towards Dick.

“N-no thank you. I uhh…already shivved a couple guys on the way in here, you know?” He tried to walk carefully around the table only to bump into Ace’s enormous chest. “Ulp.”

“What, you think you’re better than us? Think you can just ignore our kindness?” This time King dug the knife into the man’s eye socket, making Dick wince. “Get out of here! Leave us to our work before I change my mind and put YOU on the slab.”

Ace stepped aside and that was all of the go-ahead that Dick needed. He rushed around to the door and slammed it shut behind himself, exhaling a deep sigh of relief once he was on the other side.

The door had led to a long white hall. On one side at the end of the hall was a decontamination zone. Dick hadn’t had to use them much since he’d worked there, but he knew that they were important in case any contamination broke out from testing environments and they were mostly inactive unless during such an outbreak.

Go figure, the chamber was active, but the door wouldn’t open.

The hall went on further in the opposite direction, though, so he kept going, hopeful that he wouldn’t run into anyone else like the Royal Flush Gang before finding a way to an exit.

The hall led to a control room that had a window facing another decontamination chamber. Inside the chamber was none other than the crazy doctor himself: Hugo Strange.

“You there! Get me out of…Oh…Mr. Grayson…Um…No hard feelings, right? I was simply trying to protect the project. It was for the sake of all of our patients here at Arkham. Your disruptive behavior could have had us shut down.”

Dick scoffed. “You should have been shut down. Arkham should have never been rebuilt.”

“But then where would all of the inmates go? Surely Blackgate isn’t equipped for the sheer number of psychopaths being treated here. Would you prefer they were free on the streets? We’re the solution!”

“You just made everything worse,” Dick growled. “You cultivated this madness!”

“I’m sorry! Please! Don’t leave me here! If…if you let me out, I’ll make it my life’s work to correct the wrongs that Arkham has committed! Just-just press the button. Release the doors. I’m begging you.”

It was hard to forgive Strange. And it would have been so easy to just leave him there to his fate. But that wasn’t Batman’s way. It wasn’t his way. He’d just have to hold Strange to his word or catch him on the outside and force him to atone.

Dick pressed the large door release button and, before Strange could even thank him, an inmate who had definitely been through the E22 Compound treatment walked into the decontamination chamber, grabbed him by the back of the head, and began smashing his face against the glass…

…over…

…and over…

…and over again.

Dick could only watch in horror as Strange’s face caved in and blood covered the spot on the glass where he hit. When the inmate finally dropped Strange’s corpse, he stared right at Dick and stumbled backward as if he’d seen a ghost.

How? How could this monstrous man possibly be afraid of—

“EYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!”

Dick spun on his heels and found himself face to face with some awful parody of the man he admired most; a thin monster with an elongated face in an edgier and more constricting version of the Batsuit. Somehow, the worst thing was the ring of spikes he wore around his eyes; like a blindfold that threatened anyone who tried to remove it.

The laughing Batman wrapped a talon-like hand around Dick’s neck and continued to laugh his shrill laugh. Dick struggled, kicking and writhing until the man just seemed to let go and swipe at him, ripping right through the front of his jumpsuit and tearing into his flesh like it was paper. Dick stumbled back against the control panel in a panic. He couldn’t figure out the situation, he just had to run. He sprinted around the laughing Batman and back out into the hall. The laughter continued behind him and his head surged with the images from the projector. He stumbled and caught himself against the door to the earlier contamination chamber.

The laughter drew closer.

Going back meant dealing with the Royal Flush Gang. Would they let him through again? And where was he supposed to go from there?

By some miracle, the doors slid open, dropping him into the decontamination chamber. They shut behind him before the laughing Batman could get through. Dick stayed on the floor for a moment while the cleaning chemicals were sprayed over him.

His head was throbbing. The room was airlock sealed, but he could still hear the awful laugh as if it was happening inside of his skull. Every time he blinked, large blobs swam through his vision. The smell of antiseptic hit the back of his throat and he was certain that he was going to be sick. He turned over onto his hands and knees and proceeded to dry heave through the nausea. In the end he was only able to hack up a mouthful of bile, which begged the question: just how long had he been unconscious before waking up to this whole nightmare?

The door at the other end of the chamber slid open and Dick tensed as someone ran by, shouting. His head still hurt, but the nausea had passed, and his vision had returned. For now, he’d hope that the faint sound of laughter was just his mind playing tricks on him. He got to his feet and carelessly wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jumpsuit before recognizing that the camera was still strapped to his palm. Had he been so out of it that he couldn’t even feel it? Trying not to think about his own state, he flipped the camera to record and kept it steadily pointed ahead as he moved forward, determined to document it if someone decided to murder him. Surely Barbara could do something with the footage at least.

“Can’t even begin to explain how bad things have gotten,” he said quietly, hoping the mic picked him up. “Inmates killing doctors…I mean, I watched someone cave Hugo Strange’s skull in. I didn’t do anything to help him. I don’t know that I could have but…I know that I didn’t want to. I have to get out of here. This place is…it’s awful. Jason, Babs, if you see this, just…make sure Arkham gets shut down for good this time.”

He made it through the hall to a small lobby and jogged over to the marked emergency exit. It seemed like a longshot—given that the doors are locked electronically and, due to the state of emergency they were likely in a sort of lockdown—but he can’t stop himself from slamming against the door, putting all of his weight against it.

It wouldn’t even budge.

A few more tries confirmed what he already knew, and he felt his heart sink. So close and yet so far. Nothing to do but seek an alternative means of getting out.

The lobby was littered with the corpses of employees and inmates alike. Though the sight of it all continues to disturb him, he’s more disturbed by how much he’s gotten used to it. Even the stench of death was starting to seem like nothing more than the unfortunate ambiance of Arkham.

A document is left on a desk as if waiting for someone to find it. Dick picks it up and gleams its contents, his eyes narrowing as the implications set in.

\- 

“From: h.strange@arkham.us.com  
To: l.luthor@lexcorp.us.com  
Subject: Resignation for Mental Health, CC 8208

Mr. Luthor,

You may receive requests for information from a Ms. Gordon, of Gotham City, in the coming weeks concerning the resignation and hospitalization of her acquaintance, Richard. If so, please forward them to my personal attention.

Richard Grayson (Former security contract 8208 under the designation of ‘Ric Gray’) resigned due to a previously undiagnosed mental illness. I personally visited Ms. Barbara Gordon and broke the news to her with the “silver lining” that Arkham Psychiatric would be graciously providing treatment. Ms. Gordon had some less than charitable things to say about myself and the Arkham Asylum. I assured her that with her power of attorney she could try to fight the doctors’ diagnoses of her acquaintance’s illness.

However, if it were discovered that he resigned under false pretenses, his insurance would be cancelled and his next of kin—her, in this case—would be saddled with not insignificant healthcare debts and would be taken off of the waiting list for the experimental surgery to repair her damaged spine and possibly restore her ability to walk due to being blacklisted (you see, she is a paraplegic).

Hopefully she understood. But if she insists on making a nuisance of herself, or tries to get around me, please let me know. This is one I want to take care of personally.

Yours,

Doctor Hugo Strange”

\- 

Dick ripped up the document, burning rage threatening to overflow from him. He was glad that Hugo had met that fate. Relieved to know that the scumbag who had threatened Barbara was now burning in hell by his own sick twisted luck.

Dick just regret that he wasn’t able to bash the man’s skull in himself.

No, that was wrong.

Dick’s head throbbed; images of swimming patterns clouding his vision again. He recognized that it seemed to happen most often when he was agitated. He took a few steadying breaths, reminding himself that this wasn’t him. This was all by Strange’s design. Luthor had authorized his mistreatment. He just had to get out of there. Barbara would be able to help him clear his head. He had to get out and let Jason know that he didn’t have to return to Arkham. It was a messed-up request in the first place. Jason should never return to that hell-hole.

Further searching of the lobby led Dick to the realization that, aside from the decontamination room where he’d come from, there was no way to progress onward. The hall was blocked off by a completely demolished decontamination room on the other side. It looked like an elephant had stampeded through and thrashed about.

Dick thought of Zitka and smiled to himself, chuckling softly.

It took him a moment to consider what he was thinking. Why was he amused? It wasn’t the time. He had to get moving.

Thankfully he found a ceiling panel shifted over the broken decontamination room and was able to use a few shelves and drawers to pull himself up into the crawlspace in the ceiling.

It let out at the end of the hall, just in front of the employee entrance to the cafeteria. Thinking back, Dick remembered that the cafeteria connected a couple of buildings. He wondered if he could find another exit by passing through.

Upon opening the door to the kitchen, however, Dick’s settled stomach threatened to empty its contents all over again. It was like looking at a butcher shop. People were strung up on hooks by their ankles, heads removed, limbs missing…no, not missing. He could see exactly where they were; accumulated in a large pot still boiling on the stove.

Dick could practically taste the cooked flesh in the air.

Dick’s stomach betrayed him, growling at the thought of cooked meat nearby.

“Fucking disgusting,” he muttered, using the frustration at his own body’s needs to propel himself through the kitchen. He couldn’t linger there long without getting sick. That much seemed certain.

“…okay…”

Dick focused his hearing, trying to place the voice. It was low and somewhat…affectionate.

“…help you, but you can help me now…”

A strangely muffled chuckle made Dick’s heart stutter. He recognized the voice now. It belonged to Anton Schott, otherwise known as Dollmaker; a villain he’d never had any fondness for. The man was twisted. Eerie. Everything he did to people was inhumane and what they became after his ‘treatments’ was inhuman. Dick hated the thought of him running around the asylum in its current state. The damage he alone could do was frightening.

But Dick couldn’t hide in that human kitchen forever. He kept moving forward. Just as he reached the counter where the employees would serve the inmates from the safety provided by a thick wall of glass between them, he saw the psychopath. Anton was holding a man down on the counter, his head pushed through the broken surface of…

…was that a microwave?

POP!

Dick was nearly knocked right off his feet as blood splattered against the glass. His alarm gave his presence away and Anton looked right at him; a human flesh version of his usual doll-mask pasted onto his face, held in place by blood. Dick just stared at him in horror.

A loud chortle preceded his muttering. “What are you looking at, little man? I tried to fix him. Tried to make him better. But he just wasn’t compatible with the process. He’s not a kid, you know? I had to make him useful somehow. This way we can be one. His strength will be my strength.”

Dick watched in silent horror as Anton reached into the bloody microwave and pulled out something disturbingly stretchy that could barely be identified as a tongue. He leaned back and dropped the morsel of cooked muscle into his mouth, and Dick’s stomach lurched as he heard the awful sound of chewing. The only mercy was that his stomach wasn’t growling anymore. Sadly, it still had nothing to cough up, no matter how nauseous Dick felt.

“Don’t look at us! He deserves at least some privacy.”

In spite of Anton’s own demand, he leaned over and began biting at the dead man’s exposed skin, ripping and tearing just to get mouthfuls of blood and flesh.

Dick didn’t want to stay there for one more second. He rushed through the kitchen, ignoring what he now recognized was further evidence of Anton’s cannibalism, and threw himself at the door letting out into the hall of the other building. He slammed the door shut behind him and realized again that he’d had the camera rolling the whole time.

“Don’t…don’t ask to see my body, Babs,” he muttered, once again recording a little message. “When I die, when you finish the lawsuits that let you pry this footage from Arkham’s and…and Lex Corp’s army of lawyers and corporate hitmen, don’t make them show you my body.” It occurred to him then that he had lost all hope of getting out of there in one piece. Hell, even if he did, he’d never be the same. “Just bury me…Burn me…I’d much rather you remember me whole. Dollmaker is…he’s eating human flesh. He looks at me and I see anger, a little desire, and more than anything, hunger. Please…don’t make them show you my body.”

He meant every word. At this rate, he wasn’t going to make it out of there. He wasn’t going to be able to see Barbara again…God, if he only could, he’d pull her right out of her wheelchair and into his arms. He’d never let her go. He’d tell her how sorry he was for what had happened between them all those years ago. He’d apologize for how things had ended between her and Tim. She deserved better. She always did. And yet he couldn’t keep his nose out of Arkham. All because of Jason.

It was all Jason’s fault.

If not for what he’d learned about Jason’s treatment at Arkham, he would have never…

Dick pressed a hand to his temple as his head swam through the images again—this time the liquid-like patterns interspersed with imagined torture sessions involving Jason Todd at the hands of the Joker. How could he think that Jason was at all at fault for this? How could he blame Jason for such things? It was wrong. Unforgivable.

He had to get out. He had to leave and tell Jason what he felt. Apologize for everything. Make things right. They were brothers, after all. He owed him that and so much more.

Determination renewed, Dick pressed on.

The next room he found himself in was pitch black. He activated the night vision on the camera to make out the outlines of what looked like a locker room. It was odd to think that the kitchen was so close to that. He figured it was for employees. They’d be able to leave their personal belongings there in order to go in further and handle patients unencumbered. If that were the case, he couldn’t be far from an exit…right?

It took some maneuvering through the darkness, but he found his way to the far door. Upon opening it, he heard voices that made him nervous. He listened carefully, hoping that they weren’t people thinking like Dollmaker…

“Got to get out of here.”

“Is there anyone left?”

“If there is, they’re already on their way out…or they’re done for. Either way, I’m not waiting around to find out.”

“Lex Corp’s already sending the extra squad to clean up the mess. I’d rather not be part of the mess in question.”

Recognizing that they were employees, Dick stepped out only to find another hall. To his right (where the voices had come from) he found a cage door with a dead guard handcuffed to it, holding the door in place. “Nooo…” Dick shook the door, trying to break the handcuff in order to get through to the other employees. “Wait! Please!” he shouted, hoping to get someone’s attention. He shook the door some more, but the cuff showed no sign of releasing. “Shit!” He searched the dead officer frantically—nearly forgetting that the man was a rotting corpse—but found no key. “Fuck!” He punched the cage door angrily, but understood that, if he wanted to get through, he’d have to find who or what had taken the key off of the officer.

The area around the gated door was mostly blocked off, save for a busted open window over a nearby barricaded door. Dick certainly wasn’t feeling his best, but he was still able to climb up and get himself through the opened window. No sooner than he’d taken a couple of steps, however, the sound of an electric circular saw nearby made Dick’s heart jump into his throat. He dove for the cover of a nearby desk and waited, holding his breath. The whirring of the saw drew closer and closer until he could see a pair of legs right next to the desk where he was hiding. He kept his hands clapped over his mouth and nose, desperate to keep completely quiet.

Mercifully, the person turned and moved back down the hall. Dick didn’t dare to take a breath until he could hear the saw moving around a corner. Then he crawled out and took quick stock of his surroundings, not wanting to force a fight with someone crazy enough haul a saw around in an insane asylum. As far as he could tell, the computer lab across the way had two doors connected to it, one just across from him and one further down the hall. Rather than get caught in a hall with the nut-job, it would be much safer for him to secure a path back to the window. There wasn’t anything immediately close enough to help in the jump back to the other side of the blocked door, but Dick was confident that he could manage it.

Now it was just a matter of finding that key.

Trusting his ears, Dick crawled over to the computer lab. Most of the monitors were still on, even though many were strewn across the floor near overturned desks. The screens all showed the same blue light. It was harsh enough to bother Dick’s eyes, but at least it allowed him to keep the camera down while searching the room.

“I hear you, little birdie.”

Dick all but dove for the closest desk, recognizing Anton’s voice and the encroaching sound of the saw. Anton seemed to stop just at the far door, so Dick took the opportunity to creep back to the door from which he’d entered. He stuck his head out just as Anton moved further into the computer room, so Dick straightened up and moved as quickly and as quietly as he could, past the other door and around the corner to a short hall with barred doors. He supposed it didn’t matter now, but he found himself wondering what was beyond the doors that required they be sealed in the way that they were.

Lo and behold, a dead guard was at the end of the hall, key on his chest all but glowing in the dim lighting of the hall. Dick hurried to retrieve it, then turned just as Anton spotted him at the end of the hall. “Shit.”

“There you are, Birdie!” The saw buzzed menacingly as Anton ran at Dick in a mad dash. Dick took a few deep breaths and sprinted at Anton, running up the wall as they got close and flipping over the man, who was surprised enough to watch for just a moment before realizing that he could still take another swipe and caught Dick at the bottom of his ribcage. Dick barely landed on his feet and wasted no time, sprinting back towards the barricaded door. Anton continued to chase after him, ready to hack him in two. But Dick used the adrenaline to leap at the door, catching the edge of the window, and pull himself up and over, dropping hard onto the floor on the other side. He laid flat on his back for just a moment to catch his breath, then sat up, fully intending to revel in his small victory, only to feel the pain of the cut on his chest.

“Shhhit that’s going to sting.” He pressed his hand to the rip in the jumpsuit and it came away bloody. The cut didn’t feel deep enough to be problematic, but it was more than likely going to get infected with some sort of awful from this place.

Of course, with nothing to pad it, he’d just have to wait until he made it out of there and got home.

Right. Because this wasn’t going to be it for him. No matter what fresh hell was around the next corner, he could survive. He’d get through this. He had to believe that. He had to move on.

Back on his feet, Dick went to unlock the handcuff from the door, shuddering when the opposing cuff shifted on the guard’s corpse, skin sliding off the muscle in a slop. There were dead people everywhere. Was he beginning to grow numb to that? Would it be such a bad thing if he did?

Not far behind him, the buzz of the circular saw could be heard along with the scream of a madman.

Was it Anton? Was it a victim? Was it a cry of pleasure or pain? Dick couldn’t tell anymore. But as it rang out in the halls of the asylum like a battle cry…and it called to something inside of him…His head started to throb again, and the images swam, but it wasn’t as painful this time. Just…dizzying? No…Intoxicating. It was like it was calling to a hunger inside of him.

“Barbara,” he muttered as he caught himself against the door. “Tim…Jason…” He took a deep breath, grimacing over the stench of rotting flesh that permeated the whole building. “Bruce…Alfred…” He had to keep going. He had to keep going.

Suppressing the strange sensations in his head, he pushed on. The only way available now was downstairs to the morgue. There didn’t seem to be a lot of options from there, but Dick couldn’t think of another way to go from where he’d come from. He tried to recall what he knew of the layout of Arkham, but it all seemed so unnecessarily labyrinthine in his mind. Where could the employees could have gone? Had he hallucinated the voices? Maybe it had been wishful thinking? This place had a way of messing with one’s head, after all…

He put up the camera, turning on the night vision light just in time as to see the twisted false-face of Anton as he caught Dick by the throat and lifted him off the ground like he wasn’t a full grown man!

“Hahahahaha! Time to roast the Birdie!”

Dick’s only relief was that apparently Anton had abandoned the circular saw in order to sneak up on him. However, that meant he still had a free hand. He opened one of the doors to the furnace which was, to Dick’s horror, still lit.

“N-no! Wait!”

Dick barely had the chance to plead before Anton shoved his sorry ass into the chamber, closing the door on him.

Dick shrieked, trying not to press any part of himself onto the metal grate keeping him suspended over the fire. He cowered away from the door as Anton continued to laugh and one of the bricks at the back of the oven shifted at Dick’s foot.

No time to think.

Dick kicked the wall hard enough to send a shot of pain up his leg, but he didn’t dare let it stop him. He kicked and kicked with all this might until the old bricks gave out and he was able to crawl out the far side. This time he laid on the floor with purpose—allowing the cool concrete to help settle his burning skin.

“Nooo! Damnit! You weren’t supposed to do that, you mother fucker! Now there’s no bird for the dinner!”

Dick scooted further away from the hole he had created, almost worried that the psychopath would follow him through it. It was hardly a relief to hear the man shout a few obscenities before heading off to get further lost in Arkham.

What little hope Dick had found from the spike of adrenaline was gone. Fear crept back in and settled into his very bones.

“I’m going to die here,” he said into the darkness, letting the camera microphone pick it up. “I’m going to be killed, roasted, and eaten…maybe not in that order…”

With nowhere else to go but forward, Dick fell deeper into the hellish rabbit hole of Arkham. The images swam through his mind as he was assaulted by inmates and employees alike; all of whom were more covered in sores than he was covered in burns. A few more rough encounters with the Dollmaker threatened to steal the life right out of Dick, but he was able to persevere. Make it through. Overcome danger after danger until, finally, he made it outside.

“Barbara! Barbara, I’m coming home! I’m getting out of here!” he shouted, running out into the pitch blackness of the night, ignoring the brush as it seemed to grab at him like monsters in the shadows. Before he could get far, he ran smack into a fence. “No no no, where’s the door.” He searched the area, eventually giving in and pulling the camera back up for what little help that seemed to do.

Dick Grayson had made it outside of Arkham. But out in the dark brush beyond the door he’d exited from was just an outdoor recreational area…It was vast, maze-like, but meant to keep people enclosed inside and away from each other and the public.

“No…” Dick crumpled into the dirt, pulling his knees up to his face. His whole body hurt. His lungs felt like fire. His skin was bubbled or wet from burst blisters in places. He looked at his hands and began to wonder just how much he had come to resemble the inmates at Arkham. “Heh…” Out of the frying pan, he supposed.

“Heheh…hahaha!”

There was nothing to do but catch his breath, take solace in the sheer painful absurdity of the position he’d found himself in, and then get up and keep seeking a way out.


	5. Follow the Blood - Jason Todd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now trapped deeper inside Arkham, Jason begins to learn the secrets that his old place of confinement has to offer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okaaaaay, I thought I could keep this at a "Mature" rating, by not getting explicit...I mean, the game's not OVERLY explicit...save for the fact that yeah, the necro thingy in this chapter is not just my twisted mind, it's an actual encounter in the game...Good times...
> 
> Anywho, note the rating change. It was probably going to have to make that leap sooner or later anyways. Also note the updated tags. And honestly, it's just going to get worse in the next chapter, but I already tagged what to expect for that (Whistleblower fans, be prepared!).
> 
> Also! I know that Dick seemed a lot more meek in his last part while Jason's straight up ready to fight his way through most of this. That should be a little more equal. I do admit. It's tricky writing them into a situation where the characters in their place had to hide from every scary thing coming their way... But I stand by the fact that Dick made the right decision, running away from Dollmaker with a buzz-saw. Fact is: saw beats person 9/10 times...
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Jason awoke to screaming, surprised to find that some of it was his own. He sat up, trying to get his bearings and was greeted with nothing less than a nightmare. He was in a padded white room—one he could easily recognize as a cell in Arkham—and messages were written all over the walls around him in blood.

‘He is risen’

‘RIP’

‘He did not kill his enemies’

‘They clean the street every day and it all goes right back’

‘Joker here follow this way’

And worst of all were the poorly done drawings of Batman’s iconic symbol flipped upside down so that the wings pointed upward slightly and could be used to draw toothy smiles.

Jason pressed his palms to his temples as he tried to piece together where he was. He could recall the guy dressed like a preacher, he could recall a syringe, something about a ‘savior,’ and now he was in a cell in Arkham. “Fucking hell.”

Whatever was going on, somehow the Joker was at the center of it, which didn’t make any sense. The Joker was dead. Maybe he’d had his doubts once, but Bruce had gone through extra measures to truly erase the clown prince of crime.

[We are gathered here today to celebrate the passing of a legend.]

Jason winced at the voice in his head, mocking and familiar.

[He is survived, heheh, through his beloved Harley and—]

“Shut up,” Jason grumbled. It wasn’t often that he heard that particular voice in his head, but it made his blood boil whenever he did. He needed to get out of there. He needed to get back to his hideout. Get his medication. Get a real night’s sleep. He was a fool for thinking it might mend a few bridges to help Grayson out.

[Heehee. He is ESPECIALLY survived through his greatest achievement: the bird boy who dropped his daddy’s name in order to become Arkham’s personal Knight, and now even continues to pay homage to Uncle Joker by donning a helmet and going by Red Hood!]

“Fuck!” Jason held his breath, trying to make the throbbing in his skull stop. He felt sick. Being in a padded cell only made everything worse. He had to get out of there. Had to get out of Arkham. “Sorry Dick. You picked the wrong guy.” He stood up and went to the door, but before he could even test the handle, a disfigured face appeared in the small window.

Jason stepped back and habitually reached for his guns only to grit his teeth upon finding his holsters disappointingly empty. “Of course…”

The door creaked open with sinister laughter on the other side until the sound of racing footsteps drew closer.

“Ah! No! Get back! Get the fuck away from me!”

Jason’s heart raced with the footsteps and he backed himself into the corner of the room, ready to take on whatever was coming for him, but the footsteps trailed off into the distance without anything passing by the doorway. He waited a few extra seconds before peeking out from the cell.

The cell was on the second level, connected to similar cells by a raised walkway. To the right were just a couple more cells and a gate with a chain looped around it, keeping it shut. He started heading around the other way.

The next cell over was dark inside. Just in case, Jason tried the door, but it was locked. “One less thing to worry about,” he muttered to himself.

Apparently, the sound of his voice triggered the person in the next cell down as a hand smashed through the small glass window and reached around as the person behind it laughed maniacally.

Jason watched the pathetic arm from a safe distance. “You’re not a patient here, Jason…Never were,” he reminded himself. “You’re better than these monsters.”

[Are you, my little Robi-poo?]

“I’m leagues better than you, at least, you crazy fuck.”

[Heh. Says the guy talking to a voice in his head.]

Jason had to give the voice that. He seemed pretty crazy in there. “This place is fucking toxic,” he muttered as he crept around the outstretched arm and peeked into the open cell just past him. There a man was pressed as far into the corner as he could get, cowering away from the disturbing amount of blood pooled in the middle of the room. Sitting on the cot in his room was some document. Jason carefully sneaked in and snatched the document, leaving quickly and closing the door behind him, just in case the cowering man changed his mind and chose to be hostile.

He took a moment to read over the document, hoping to find some explanation for what insanity was going on in the bowels of Arkham.

-

HYPNOTIC EXPERIMENTATION & RESEARCH

On Wednesday, September 4th, 1993, hypnotic experimentation and research work was continued in Building 13 of Mount Arkham Preserve in Colorado using the following subjects:

Inmate – Pamela Isley  
Volunteer – Dr. Harleen Quinzel

1\. A posthypnotic of the night before (pointed finger, you will sleep) was enacted. Miss Quinzel and Miss Isley immediately progressed to a deep hypnotic state with no further suggestion. Miss Quinzel was then instructed (having previously expressed a fear of firearms in any fashion) that she would use every method at her disposal to awaken miss Isley (now in a deep hypnotic sleep), and failing this, she would pick up a nearby pistol and fire it at Miss Isley. She was instructed that her rage would be so great—even in spite of her professional standing—that she would not hesitate to ‘kill’ Isley for failing to awaken.

2\. Miss Quinzel carried out these suggestions to the letter including firing the (unloaded pneumatic pistol) gun at Isley and then proceeding to fall into a deep sleep. After proper suggestions were made, both were awakened and expressed complete amnesia for the entire sequence. Miss Quinzel was again handed the gun, which she refused (in an awakened state) to pick up or accept from the operator. She expressed absolute denial that the aforementioned sequence had taken place at all.

On Wednesday, September 25th, 1993, Harleen Quinzel (formerly Dr. Harleen Quinzel) was admitted to Arkham as a patient. Repeated hypnotic experimentation damaged her psyche, making her more suggestible and one of her patients in particular took advantage of that change, leading to a complete psychotic break.

-

Jason was at a loss. This document suggested that Harley wasn’t just sane once upon a time—a concept that he’d never quite believed upon meeting the clown princess—but that her insanity was sparked by experiments performed on her at Arkham.

“If Arkham made Harley Quinn…”

[I made Harley! How dare they take credit for my masterpiece! Sure, you were my coupe de grace, but she was my muse!]

Jason tucked the document into his jacket pocket. It didn’t excuse Harley—not even for what she’d done to him—but maybe someone could still help her. Maybe, if they made her like that, they could unmake her.

“Who’s this?”

Jason’s head snapped up and he searched for the origin of the voice.

“Maybe Deacon Blackfire’s man.”

Jason made his way to the end of the walkway where it turned towards another locked gate with stairs going down just before it.

Standing on the other side of the gate were a couple of disturbingly familiar faces; Joker’s once loyal goons: Mr. Hammer and Mr. Sickle. They stood so that their arms were on their respective sides, mocking the fact that they had once been one. And to Jason’s horror, they didn’t have a scrap of clothing on them.

[Ooh, remember when I let them have a go at you?]

“Shut up,” Jason gritted out.

“Mouth on him.”

“Reminds me of the pretty bird.”

“Oh yeah.”

“He looks nervous.”

“Probably knows what we want to do with him.”

“But Deacon Blackfire asked us not to.”

“It would be impolite to ignore an old friend, though.”

“Too true. Maybe we should give him a running start?”

“There’s an idea. A little opportunity to accomplish what the Deacon wants.”

“And when we catch him?”

“We kill him slow.”

Jason took a step back.

“Mmm, such patience.”

“I want his tongue and liver when we’re done.”

“They’re yours. I know how you love them.”

[Haha! Guess you really left an impression on them! Those bozos could barely remember their left from right, but they certainly loved making you scream.]

As if he could hear the Joker’s voice as well, Mr. Hammer smiled and began palming himself, his eyes still trained on Jason.

“Get too close and I’ll gut you fucks,” Jason threatened.

Neither one of them said another word, just watched him and chuckled to themselves as if recalling a simple joke. Jason hurried down the stairs, not wanting to deal with them any longer, and found that a few patients were out of their cells and wandering about freely. One in particular was close to the bottom of the stairs. Jason tried his best to creep around the guy, but he looked right at Jason the moment his foot hit the lower floor.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the man said with a mocking smile. Jason sucked in a scream. The man’s face was disfigured; his eyelids had been removed as well as his lips, making him look permanently amused. His entire body was covered with sores and open wounds—some even seemed to soak right through the nasty looking jumpsuit he wore.

[If only he knew how right he is! Hahaha!]

Jason kept his hands up, ready to defend himself if need be, but the guy seemed disinclined to take any action against Jason. Further out on the floor, a man wearing a strait jacket was uttering random nonsense as he bashed his face bloody against the concrete posts holding the raised walkway up. After three hits against one he’d slowly slink over to another and repeat the process in no particular order. It was convincing enough to keep Jason from heading anywhere near him.

A few of the cells had opened doors while others had people screaming on the other side in unlit rooms. He saw no reason to disturb what he didn’t have to, and instead went for an opened cell in the middle of the opposite side from where he’d awakened a floor up. Sitting next to the open door was another inmate wearing what looked like old, dried up leather.

Upon getting closer, Jason was horrified to realize that the old leather was just the man’s skin. He had a huge ‘Y’ shaped scar, loosely stitched on his chest and abdomen as if he’d been cracked open for an autopsy and got up right after. Jason hadn’t realized the guy was naked before because there was nothing between the man’s legs. Now he could tell that it was because whatever had been there had been artlessly removed, leaving nothing but skin stitched over the place for coverage (like some kind of Ken doll parody). No one should be able to survive whatever that guy had been through, and yet he shifted in his seat as Jason got close.

“Don’t trust them.”

Jason froze in place.

“They’ll tell you that it’s science, but it’s not. They were just waiting for people like us. People that no one would miss. Joker, he understood. The real monsters have always been here.”

Jason’s expression darkened at the way the man seemed to speak of the Joker with reverence. “He was the monster,” Jason argued. “Always was.”

[Oh, flattery will get you nowhere, Robi-poo!]

Jason walked past the maimed man, not wanting to linger there any longer. There was no sympathy to be had for a man who looked up to the Joker.

The far wall of the cell had been broken down—like some great force had plowed right through the brick to a narrow space that likely wasn’t meant for people to navigate through. Jason finally fished the cell phone out of his pocket, relieved to find that it was still there, and flipped it up, turning the flash on to see. There was a wooden crate placed at the end of the space that led to an opening in the ceiling. “Nowhere else to go but up,” he muttered.

As he drew closer, his nerves frayed a little upon hearing strange shifting sounds and someone whispering, “Silky,” over and over again. He climbed up and moved so that his light illuminated the area only to cover his mouth in horror at what he saw.

A goblin-like inmate was balls deep in the ass of a headless corpse, thrusting like an animal in heat as another inmate stood nearby, palming himself while acting as an audience to the shit-show.

Upon noticing the light, the goblin-guy turned on Jason, pulling himself out of the corpse quickly with an awful, wet sound. “God damnit! You weren’t invited! What the fuck is the matter with you?”

Jason was taken aback. For a brief moment he nearly began arguing with the monster—as if that would change anything about the messed-up situation—but instead he kept his mouth shut and braced for a fight. If this man got too close, Jason was definitely going to snap his creepy little neck.

“You god damned sicko!” The man suddenly changed his tone, jerking at his member a few times while saying, “What, you like to watch?” He flipped Jason off. “That’s just sick! You’re just sick!”

“Get any closer and I’ll rip that thing off and shove it down your throat,” Jason warned.

The man retreated slightly but his eyes continued to follow Jason, who didn’t dare look away as he found another hole letting out to an illuminated hallway.

[Well, that was certainly something else. Sure you don’t want to go back there and take him up on his weird offer? It’s not like my little Birdie is a virgin or anything, and I’ll bet he’d be much happier with a warm hole to work with.]

“SHUT UP!” Jason shouted, pressing his hands over his ears, as if crushing his skull might stop the voice. “Fuck you! I’m getting out of here! I’m getting out and never looking back!”

[Haha! That’s okay. Just like you can’t get rid of me, we both know that you’ll never really be free from this place.]

Jason desperately wished that the voice was wrong. It felt wrong. This wasn’t just his mind playing tricks on him like it normally did. This wasn’t just old trauma reemerging to torment him. This felt like something had burrowed into his skull and had taken root. It was like the Joker really was talking to him.

He pushed the worries from his mind, burying them with the voice, and got his bearings. He quickly discovered that the hall he’d come out to was on the opposite end of the 2nd floor cells—past where the locked gates were…which meant he was now in the same area as the twins, who were curiously absent now from where they had been before.

“I fucking hate this place…” Dying, after all, was getting lower and lower on the list of the worst things that could happen to him if he stuck around. As he turned away from the gate where the twins had been, someone called out to him.

“Ah! You didn’t wait until I finished! How rude! I saved some for you too!”

Jason looked in horror as the goblin-guy rattled the gate from the other side, licking his cracked lips as he stared hungrily at Jason. “Wait right there! I’ll come to you!”

“Like fuck I will!” Jason took off, heading further down the back hall to put some distance between himself and the cells, until he eventually came upon a fork in the path with a message written out in blood:

‘GOD ALWAYS PROVIDES A WAY’

Just below it was another message, though this one was written in different handwriting…almost familiar handwriting.

‘FOLLOW THE BLOOD AND STAY SAFE’

“Wait for me!” the goblin shouted, alarmingly close now.

Bloody footprints trailed down the hall to the right. Choosing to trust the friendlier of the wall messages, Jason took off, following the trail to a still-functioning ‘decontamination chamber.’ What needed to be decontaminated, Jason didn’t want to know, but at least it would help him to feel a little cleaner. He stepped in and the automatic doors shut behind him before a green mist of chemical spray was released into the room. Though he didn’t know what sort of cleaning sequence involved green chemicals, the strong scent of antiseptic was enough to calm him down. He held his arms out, hoping to wash away everything that he’d just seen. When the spray had mostly dispersed, the doors on the opposite side opened, letting him out to continue following the bloody trail.

An arrow had been made in blood, painted on the wall by the sign marking ‘A Block’, but the elevator wasn’t there and there was nowhere else to go except around the corner.

“God provides a way and the devil mocks it,” Jason muttered to himself as he abandoned the bloody trail to turn the corner. There he found another inmate with his hands pressed against the wall as if he was trying to read some microscopic message on it.

“Down…Down the drain…Down the rabbit hole! Haha!”

Upon closer examination, Jason realized that the man was Jervis Tetch. “Shit. Didn’t think you could GET crazier,” Jason mumbled.

[Remember when he made you wear that pretty blue dress, Robi-poo?]

Jason’s jaw clenched.

[It’s kind of weird. Haha. Here I always thought his type was dead girls. But then you just had to go and prove me wrong! Hahaha! Guess people will fuck anything in here, am I right?]

“Only way out is down! Down we go! Down down down dow—”

Jason punched Tetch square in the jaw, knocking the scraggly man off his feet and into a crumpled pile on the floor.

[Ooh! That’s my boy! Got to get back at the people who ruined you, right? There’s the angry, revenge-seeking killer that I raised!]

Jason stomped on Tetch’s stomach for good measure, seeing red at that point.

{I can still help you.}

Jason froze, his foot raised over Jervis, ready to slam down again.

[Hey! What the hell? Get out of here, Batsy! This brain is occupato!]

{I won’t let them hurt you anymore.}

[Fat lot of good that did! Just another empty promise before he abandoned you yet again! Hahaha! It was a good joke though, don’t you think?]

Jason took a step back and closed his eyes. Memories were still swimming through his mind.

The Joker had created a schedule to keep up with ‘demand.’ A new horror every day of the week. Conditioning with Harley between ‘conjugal visits’ from the inmates that Bruce had put away. Each one of them seemed angrier than the last as they were given free rein to do with Jason as they pleased (just as long as they didn’t kill him. He was far too valuable a toy to break like that). It had gotten so bad that he’d come to prefer Harley’s conditioning time. At least she talked to him like he was still there. At least she still called him by his name. At least the punishments would stop if he did something that made her happy.

It had taken Slade the better part of a year to break that conditioning and finally give Jason enough strength and confidence to regain some agency.

Slade…Jason sat down with his back against the wall and thought about the old soldier. The man was every bit as evil and powerful as Robin had been taught to believe, but there was more to him too. He had a code. He had a heart. It may have been hidden under the horrors of his actions, but at least he had shown Jason mercy when no one else would. At least he had shown Jason companionship when the rest of the world had turned its back on him. At least Jason could always count on Slade as long as he kept the old man’s pockets full.

Slade used to force him to meditate in strange places. Force his mind to go quiet for hours at a time so that he could get used to his own head again. The man had taught Jason deep breathing exercises to force his heart rate down and create at least the illusion of calm.

Jason couldn’t get his head completely quiet, but at least he afforded himself a moment to settle his nerves. He kept his ears strained, almost anticipating the goblin-guy’s approach, but there was nothing to be heard save for Jervis’ unsteady breathing.

Jason found himself wondering what became of Slade. He knew that, after abandoning his plan to ruin Bruce, Slade chose to continue with it. Jason never blamed him, he just knew that he couldn’t keep going like that when his heart was no longer in it. He knew that Slade had faced Bruce during that fateful night and lost. But it wasn’t like there was an Arkham to throw him into at the time. He must have been sent to Blackgate. That was okay. The place had one hell of a bad reputation, but so did Slade. Jason knew he could manage. Someday their paths might even cross again. He’d never bothered to thank the old man for all that he did. Maybe he’d apologize as well. It was his fault that Slade lost in the end, after all. If he hadn’t given up, they really would have broken the Bat.

Jervis struggled back up to his feet and continued to pace about the wall, though his voice was even quieter now. Jason followed suit, getting back to his feet, and looked down at the hole in the floor that had been crudely smashed open. If the Mad Hatter was to be trusted, the only way out was down.

At least the lower area wasn’t another cell block. To his relief, there WAS a trail of blood for him to follow there as well.

[Are you actually relieved to see blood? Haha! Maybe you really are crazy!]

It was the only lead he had, he told himself, trying to reason against the crazy voice. The blood led him through hall after hall. Corpses were littered about like castaway debris to be left for someone else to deal with. The most he could hope was that their final fate would be better than to be fucked by some crazy necrophile. Occasionally an inmate or two went after Jason, but they were almost fragile and weren’t difficult to fight off and were more often than not scared off when the person they thought would be easy prey suddenly fought back.

Eventually he came to another decontamination room with blood trailing into it. Jason had to pull a few strings and navigate the halls back to some security rooms in order to activate the room. He witnessed a guard being beaten to death by an inmate and thought about avenging the guy only to decide against it upon seeing the jagged nails sticking out of the makeshift bat used to beat the guy.

At least it’s not Grayson, he thought.

[Ooh, could you imagine that fairy-boy stuck in a place like this? Haha! You should have checked that headless body earlier. Maybe the guy just wanted a piece of that famous booty!]

Jason shuddered at the suggestion. Dick wasn’t some helpless guard, trained only to deal with crazy patients. Dick was the original Robin. He was Nightwing. Maybe he was more inclined to crack a joke than crack a skull, but he could survive this place. He had to…Unless Jason happened across him while there, he wasn’t going to bother with rescuing the guy, after all. This had been a mistake already. Jason’s only priority was to get out of there. He’d sort out burning the place down later.

He finally got back to the now-functioning decontamination room and embraced the chemical bath before being let out to another area to keep following the trail of blood.

The room let out to a dark hall where, at the end stood the twins.

“Fuck.”

“We gave him a chance.”

“Paragons of patience.”

“Even fought against our personal desires.”

“But now, now we indulge.”

“Yes. His tongue and liver?”

“Yours, of course.”

Rather than come down the hall, they split up, heading in opposite directions at the end of the hall. Jason pulled out the flip phone to illuminate the area and sighed upon seeing that the blood trail didn’t turn off into any of the rooms down the hall; it just continued to where the twins had been.

The blood took Jason on a wild trip through the B Block, having to use broken windows to get around locked doors and avoid the twins as they quietly mocked him at every turn. At one point, while overlooking the cell block, Bane broke through a door and grabbed a fleeing inmate, ripping his head right off of his body.

[Haha! Now that looks like a party! Just can’t quite shake that ugly fucker, huh?]

That was an understatement. Jason could handle the malnourished stick people that seemed to be littered throughout the place, but Bane was too much to handle. The last thing he wanted was to get caught by him.

[He was kind of nice, wasn’t he? Nothing but throwing you around when he could. One time, sure, I had to get the guards I paid off to get him away from you. I think he was the closest one to killing you—after me, of course.]

Like Jason needed the reminder. His joints still got messed up where Bane had dislocated his limbs from throwing him around like a ragdoll.

Eventually Jason found the door to the shower room. Not really an ideal place to go but based on the map picture he’d taken with his phone and the blood trail that he was still following, there was a means of getting outside through the shower room.

The moment he opened the door he felt a bone-chilling breeze. Jason took a deep breath, relishing the crisp night air. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense for the shower to have a draft like that, but he didn’t care. The sound of the rainfall, the crackling of the thunder, the brief blinding flashes from the lightning. It meant that there was a way out nearby. All he had to do was find it.

Of course, Jason didn’t really have memories of the showers at Arkham. Rather than let him properly clean himself up during his stay, the Joker would hose him down when he started to smell. The water was always ice cold and the pressure was enough to break skin, but it was the only way he was allowed to get clean (unless the water torture counted, but Jason didn’t like thinking about where Harley got that water from). Still, all recent experiences considered, this was NOT where he wanted to deal with any wayward inmates.

But beggars couldn’t be choosers. As he moved along the rickety walkway over the dark floors below, lightning flashed and the shadow of one of the twins could be seen up ahead.

“The fuck are you waiting for, then?” Jason shouted, bracing himself for a fight. Hammer and Sickle were big, but they weren’t impossible. He’d taken them both down in the past. And after having made it this far, there was no way he was going to let these guys keep him from freedom. “Come on!”

But the twin didn’t move. He just continued to stand still in the darkness, as if he were waiting for something.

“Where’s your freaky brother?”

Asked AND answered; a huge hand caught Jason by the shoulder and yanked him backwards, pulling him into a headlock.

“F-fuck!”

[Ha! Fuck is right! Can’t believe these blockheads outsmarted you. You really have gone soft.]

Something hard pressed to Jason’s back, making the hair on his arms stand upright.

[Ooh. Well HE certainly hasn’t gone soft.]

Jason thought back to Judo with Slade and braced both hands on the too-big arm, taking his weight so that he could pull his legs and torso up—swinging them forward—before using all of his own body mass and his opponent’s to pull them both forward, dropping the twin down face first and breaking out of his hold. The other twin finally moved upon seeing his brother take a beating, rushing over to help subdue Jason, who got out from under the mass of maniac and kicked at the other twin’s kneecap, dropping him as well before rushing ahead, past where they had boxed him in.

[Bet they weren’t expecting that! Good to see you’re still in top form! Years of training to take down Batsy sure paid off!]

“Is there any way to shut you up?” Jason growled as he kept running.

[You could try killing me. Oh wait! Hahahaha!]

Jason looked out of the shattered windows he passed and recognized that he was too high up to make it down safely, and the last thing he wanted was to be forced to fight these fuckers with his legs messed up from a fall. Abandoning the hope of getting out via the showers, he passed through the far door, slamming it shut behind him. At least the blood trail was still around to guide him, he supposed. He kept a brisk pace as he followed the trail to yet another decontamination room which was, once again, deactivated. At least he knew the process at this point. He backtracked until he found the security room; this one in particular was a bit larger so it likely had more controls available. He went over to the control panel and realized that it had a large window showing through to the very decontamination room where he was trying to go. “Guess if all else fails, I’ll just throw a desk at this, huh?”

He found the activation switch and was surprised when the doors to the room opened, letting Bane in.

“Oh fuck.”

Bane looked right at him, still sporting that Joker-esque smile. Jason turned tail as the glass shattered towards him. The whole room shook, making the air vent fall open, as if inviting him to take an alternative route to get out of there. Using one of the nearby desks to get a boost, he launched himself at the vent and pulled himself in, confident that Bane couldn’t join him in there.

Of course, he wasn’t all that confident that Bane couldn’t grab the vent and pull it right down if he waited around, so he scurried right through and dropped out, to his relief, on the opposite side of the decontamination room he’d just activated, though something was slamming hard enough into the automatic doors to bend them.

The trail was past the doors, so there was nothing to do but try to pass before Bane would bust through. He took off, legs burning from the strain of the run, and made it to the door just as the room exploded in a burst of flame, sending Jason flying through the window across the way. He landed hard in the dark lower part of the shower room, but something wet cushioned his fall just a little. Hoping that it was just rain water, Jason hurriedly got to his feet and pulled out the flip phone (truly amazing how much this phone had withstood), illuminating the area only to fight the bile rising in his throat.

He’d landed in a pile of corpses; inmates, guards, and employees alike, all torn apart, broken, innards spilled everywhere. He scrambled to his feet and nearly slipped on someone’s pancreas.

“There’s no running from me, little birdie!” Bane jumped down and the whole room shook upon his landing. Jason quickly shut off the phone light and hid in the darkness, hoping to keep out of Bane’s reach. Bane was too loud to move about quietly, so Jason did his best to time his own steps with Bane’s movements in order to hide his location. The occasional flash of lightning illuminated stairs that led back up to where they’d come from. It was all he could do to hope that the twins hadn’t found their way there.

Avoiding Bane seemed to be going well enough until Jason took that first step up onto the metal step. The whole walkway seemed to rattle from the movement, giving him away.

“Found you! Hahaha!”

No sense pacing himself now. Jason ran up the stairs two at a time, navigating the dark walkway until he found the place where he’d been thrown and hopped back through to the lit-up hallway. He followed the blood trail right to another decontamination room and, as soon as it let him out on the other side, he kicked the control panel, breaking it and sealing the doors behind him. Maybe it wouldn’t keep Bane out for long, but it would buy him some time at least.

A scream made him jolt and turn around to find he was at yet another cell block. This one was much louder than the previous ones, though. In the middle of the place was a single corpse. No clothing, but based on the less awful looking skin, not likely an inmate. “Fuck all of this shit.” Jason said, exasperated. A man with no pants, a strait jacket, and a blindfold and gag slowly approached him. Jason did his best to ignore him, certain the guy wouldn’t be much of a fight anyways, but he just kept following Jason with every step that he took. “Like a lost puppy,” Jason muttered.

[Ooh, I always wanted a pet! I mean, they say a caged bird won’t sing, but my birdie never seemed to stop! So noisy. This guy looks like he’s been better trained.]

“Note to self: beat the voices out of my head later if my usual medication won’t work.”

[Party pooper.]

Jason did his best to ignore the obscene things that the inmates did and said as he passed by their cells. He scaled up higher and higher, trying to get back to at least the same level where the blood had been leading him. He just had to relocate it and move on.

One particularly nasty inmate nearly shoved Jason off the 3rd floor walkway as he passed—a fall that might have been a little more fatal if he landed wrong—but another inmate reached out from their cell and shoved the man off instead. He landed right on top of the other corpse below with an awful SMACK! The guy in the strait jacket tilted his head back as if he was looking up at Jason from below. Jason felt a brief moment of sympathy. These were all patients. Not just inmates. Not everyone at Arkham was among Gotham’s droves of psycho killers…and if the note about Ivy and Harley’s hypnotherapy was to be believed, some of those well-known psycho killers may not have been the way that they were before having gone to Arkham.

“I’ll get out of here,” Jason muttered. “I’ll get out of here and I’ll tell everyone what’s really happening in here. Get this place shut down for good.” It was a hollow promise, but it made him feel a little better about abandoning the people below.

Sitting on a short table outside of a single cell was another document. Jason couldn’t help but feel like these were being left specifically for him to find. Still, he didn’t dare to question it. The information was eye-opening.

-

ONLINE OBITUARY: ALFRED THADDEUS CRANE PENNYWORTH

-

Jason’s heart thudded in his chest upon reading the name it went to. Knightfall had happened. He knew it had happened. He’d been close enough to see the flames as the Wayne Mansion was reduced to a smoldering pile of memories—or maybe that was all it had ever been. He could still remember the taste of blood in his mouth from where he’d bitten through his lip. Bruce had promised to help him, then Bruce had died. And worse: Bruce had taken Alfred with him. If anyone deserved better, it was Alfred…But what was an obituary for Alfred doing in Arkham?

-

Alfred T.C. Pennyworth passed away doing the work he loved. He was born in 1943 in London, England and achieved fame infamy working for government intelligence agencies (most of his endeavors from that time are still redacted). In order to leave that behind, he emigrated to the United States in 1966 with a visa from the State Department and a job as a butler in the Wayne family household. Several decades later Pennyworth’s ties to vigilante activity were brought to light. As he and his charge both passed, he leaves no survivors.

-

It wasn’t entirely surprising to find out that Alfred had some background in secret service. He was always too good at what he did. But why did Arkham need record of his passing? What could that saint of a man have to do with this hell hole? He chose to hold onto it, determined to get some answers from the people who had the fortune of knowing Alfred longer.

[The old stooge? Really? Who cares what his deal is! Just because he changed Batsy’s diapers as he grew up doesn’t mean he’s worth a shit!]

If punching himself in the face would actually injure the voice, Jason would have done it. Unfortunately, that’s not how that works.

Eventually he came upon a crawl space through one of the cells on the third floor. It led to a dark area, so Jason kept his phone handy, hoping not to find another fucked up scene like he did with the necrophile.

“Eyah!”

Jason hit his head on the concrete as he passed through. Apparently his light had startled an inmate on the other side. Rather than attack, the guy just curled up in the fetal position and shrank into the corner as far as he could go.

“Yeah, well, fuck you too,” Jason mumbled as he crawled through and got back to his feet.

Soon he was back in a hall like where he’d been in the other cell blocks and he found the blood trail once again.

Unfortunately, the blood trail led him to a hole in the floor connected with a long ladder. Based on the awful stench wafting upward, he had a good guess as to where it was leading him. “As if this day hadn’t been shitty enough.”

[Haha! Good one.]

“Fuck off.”

He lowered himself down the ladder, wishing once again that he still had his helmet. What he wouldn’t give to have something to filter out the stench of shit and blood as he found himself in the sewer. At least the sewer tunnels were illuminated. Not that watching his step would change much, but it took some of the worry away. What was really disturbing now, however, was that the walls were covered in one thing over and over again, written in both shit and blood:

HE WHO LAUGHS

HE WHO LAUGHS

HE WHO LAUGHS

HE WHO LAUGHS HE WHO LAUGHS HE WHO LAUGHS HE WHO LAUGHS

Jason could all but feel a headache as he looked at the scrawled message. Too much blood to discern a trail. Too much noise to calm himself.

“Heh.” He couldn’t even use Slade’s deep breathing technique since the toxic air would gag him. “Hehehe.”

[Oho? Something funny, Robi-poo?]

Jason wasn’t going to acknowledge the voice this time. He was just trying to ease some of the pressure on his skull.

Eventually he came upon a small area where the maintenance crew likely came around to do basic work (assuming they ever did…). Sitting on a crate by the broken ladder was another document. Jason wasn’t loving what information he was finding on these papers left for him, but information was information.

-

This God is real. What we’ve mistaken so long for ghosts, spirits, madness. We were only willfully ignorant. The scales on Saul’s eyes were fear, and when you see beyond it, you truly see. This is the gift of the One Who Laughs. The Gospel of the Bat. The greatest sin in the world is willful ignorance of God. To receive a revelation and not spread it to the waiting flock. This place…To stand in the way of salvation is a sin for which there is no punishment too great.

-

Deacon Blackfire. Jason knew he recognized the old man who had drugged him. The guy was a religious fanatic. He’d taken the opportunity the Arkham Knight’s chaos had created to perform rituals of human sacrifice. Jason had looked at Bruce’s files on him not too long ago. The guy was sick. Sacrificing innocent people like that was unforgivable. Now, to think that such a man had found a ‘new god’ in…who…the Joker? It was disgusting.

[Gospel of the Bat, huh? Doesn’t sound like what a bible dedicated to me would be titled. Ooh, does Brucey laugh? Now that DOES sound like something to base a whole religion around. Hahahaha!]

Jason cast the paper aside, unwilling to waste another thought on it.

The rest of the time he spent wading around the sewers was punctuated by the fact that, somehow, Bane had beaten him down there. It took a lot of careful dodging in order to avoid the worst of the man’s wrath. At one point, while trying to get through a crawl space, Bane had caught Jason’s ankle and pulled him back. One hard kick to the face freed him, but his ankle felt messed up after that. At one point he encountered another inmate who must have been horribly lost to be down there. The guy was feeling chatty apparently.

“You don’t have to be scared of me.”

Jason clicked on his phone light to find the Penguin talking to him. “Weirdest thing you’ve ever said,” Jason admitted.

“I can tell we’re the same. You still know what’s real.”

Jason thought about telling Oswald off. He considered breaking that pointy nose right up into his face. But the fact was; he sounded sane. Even in a jumpsuit, he looked like he was scared. Like any person should react to seeing this much horror around them.

“But the old man’s dead. You know that, right? Pennyworth died before he even got here.”

Jason froze up at the mention of Alfred’s name.

“What kind of experiments does a dead man perform on living patients? That’s the real question.”

“Alfred wouldn’t…I mean…”

“Alfred? Did you know him?”

Jason didn’t want to give himself away. As lucid as Oswald seemed, he didn’t seem to recognize Jason (and why should he? Unless he got close enough to see the ‘J’ permanently burned onto Jason’s face—a mark Penguin liked to cover on his days with Jason—there was nothing that should be identifying on him).

“I just…I don’t know how he was connected to all of…this…”

Oswald shook his head. “It wasn’t just him. He brought something with him. Something…something Luthor and Waller just couldn’t resist. They thought it could be the answer. He thought it could be the answer. Damned fools, all of them. Nothing good ever came from working with the Bat…”

Jason dismissed Oswald’s ominous ramblings. After all, what he said made it sound like it wasn’t the Joker and the twisted people pulling the strings at Arkham who were to blame for all this but…possibly Alfred and…Bruce? That didn’t make sense. That couldn’t be true. No matter what happened to Bruce, he would never allow…this…

Bane found Jason a few more times before he finally made his way out of the sewers and to a hall with a sign for the ‘Male Ward’. Wet and covered in actual shit, Jason sighed and took off his jacket. The papers he’d collected were soaked and useless now anyways, and with no guns, he didn’t have any use for the ammo that he carried on him at all times. It was just slowing him down. It wasn’t great, feeling so exposed, in Arkham, but it felt necessary just the same.

At least he had the blood trail again. Following it, he came across an open room with something inside buzzing in the darkness. He clicked on the phone light and went to check it out. Inside is a castaway radio. He checked it quickly, but it wasn't picking up any signal, so there was no hope of contacting someone outside. Would he really subject someone else to this nightmare anyways? No. It didn’t matter.

Jason moved to leave the room only to notice the words written in the wall by the door:

‘FINGERS FIRST  
THEN BALLS  
THEN TONGUE’

Jason shuddered. “Someone’s…managing the torture,” he realized. “Instructing others on how to perform it…”

[Oof. What kinda sicko waits until AFTER removing the balls to remove the tongue? Could you imagine the screams? Hahaha!]

Just a little further along the trail of blood, Jason found another document. This one, however, had an entirely different feel from the others…

-

PATIENT STATUS REPORT  
by Lazlo Valentin

This patient also, unfortunately, didn’t make it. I tried my best, but I’m just a Doctor, not a miracle-worker. And I’m pretty new to this whole “Arkham employed doctor” thing, so I’m still working out all the kinks.

Anywho—somebody’s gotta cut the fat from this PROJECT LAUGHTER disaster. We’ve been bleeding money ever since this thing went tits up on account of Bruce Wayne’s involvement.

But I’ve managed to slim back personnel by more than 80 people. Which means short term savings in salary and long-term savings in pension and health care costs.

AND I’ve been figuring out a lot about biology. I was on the fence about it before, but now I can say with absolute certainty that a person can’t live without his kidneys. You learn something new every day.

-

Jason could hardly believe it. For whatever insane reason, Arkham had taken one of their own patients and…employed him! Lazlo Valentin, Professor Pyg, he was known for his horrible acts of mutilation. The freak had torn people apart and put them back together to his liking! It was sheer insanity! The very definition of it! And they thought THAT was employable? No WONDER so many weird experiments were happening there.

Shutting down Arkham really wouldn’t be enough. Everyone who had ever been a part of it…hell, it sounded like Lex Luthor and Amanda Waller BOTH had their hands in on this mess…they’d all have to pay. Good thing the Red Hood was all about vengeance.

Following the blood trail, Jason came upon a door that he opened only to be face to face with Mr. Sickle.

“Oh fuck.”

“Found you, pretty bird!”

Jason turned tail and spotted Mr. Hammer at the far end of the hall. With no other choice, he threw his shoulder into a nearby door, bursting through. He had to make a break for it. Maybe he’d lose the trail of blood but…hell, why was he relying on it anyways? Why did he trust that it might help him? He was stupid. Now he was going to get hopelessly lost and that was that. No more blaming it on some unexplained trail leading to god knows where.

“I’m going to make you pay for what you did, pretty bird!”

“As long as you leave me his tongue! I don’t even care about anything else anymore!”

Jason realized that, in his mad dash, he was running in circles. He passed places he’d already seen and the twins showed no signs of slowing down. At this rate, all it would take was for one of them to recognize the pattern and lie in wait for Jason to inevitably make his way to them.

“Fuck fuck fuck!”

“You’re not one of them, are you?”

The new voice gave Jason pause. He looked around the room he’d just run into in a panic.

“Get in the dumbwaiter if you want to live!”

Jason spotted the tiny little service elevator. It wasn’t supposed to carry people, but he could fit. He’d have to. He forced himself inside and shut it just as the twins spotted him. They groaned and cursed, annoyed at having lost their prey again as Jason was lifted up slowly. Someone had turned it on. He was being taken somewhere…

…Was it really a good idea to trust a mysterious voice?

Upon reaching the next floor, Jason realized just how great his mistake was. Waiting on the other side of the sliding gate was none other than Professor Pyg himself, nose broken and missing so that his face actually did resemble his namesake. Jason tried to hold the gate shut, but Pyg nearly broke his fingers as he forced it open with unnatural strength. He grabbed Jason by the neck and pulled him out, throwing him down hard.

[Well, well. Piggy seems a little different. You think he’s been juicing?]

Jason tried to get up. Tried to protect himself, but Pyg stomped down on his chest hard enough to crack his ribs.

“You made the right choice there, friend. Don’t worry. The doctor will see you now.”

Pyg grabbed Jason by the collar of his shirt, raised him up slightly, and punched him with enough force to knock him out.


	6. Shattering What Was Already Broken - Dick Grayson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick encounters a couple of familiar faces, but they're even more sinister than he remembers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the beginning of Dick's veritable hell! That's right! All of the horrors before did NOT prepare him for this! It's time for him to deal with 'the Groom'.
> 
> Of course this is the initial encounter, so...yeah, it's going to get even worse soon.

The recreational area had once seemed like a dream: outside of the stale stench of blood, away from the horrors that were waiting back inside of Arkham. But the further Dick got into the labyrinth the worse things were. Inmates attacked or leapt at him when he was least expecting it. Bane even showed up, laughing creepily in a way that seemed disturbingly out of character for him. And at one point Dick thought he saw the awful parody of Batman again, but it had floated right through him so…maybe it was just in his head?

Then he saw the twins; Hammer and Sickle, Bruce used to call them. Dick supposed that ‘twin’ wasn’t exactly the right word; they had once been conjoined, after all. But now, separated and watching him from the other side of the fence while buck-fucking-naked, they seemed more menacing than ever. The only mercy was that they seemed more inclined to watch him than to do anything else (aside from jerk themselves off, but Dick really didn’t love thinking about that).

Eventually he came upon a basketball court where a few inmates were playing a spirited game even though their ball was too flat to dribble well. Upon getting closer, Dick realized that it wasn’t a basketball that was pounding against the pavement, and the headless corpse of a fellow inmate was shoved through the hoop, preventing them from scoring. Dick made sure to get away from them fast from fear that his head might become their next ball.

In spite of his desperate search, there was no point in the fence that was broken enough to let him truly reach freedom. Part of him knew that was a good thing. It meant that none of the inmates had gotten out to wreak havoc. With him there, after all, who was going to stop them from messing up Gotham? Tim was out of town. Barbara was a badass, but still restricted by her wheelchair. And if Jason got his message…

God, if Jason got his message, would he really come? What good would that do? He had basically asked a broken man to come back and face the origin of his nightmares. How could he do that? And if Jason really did show up…would he even save him? Hell, at this rate Dick hoped Jason saw who sent the message and immediately deleted it. He didn’t owe them anything, after all. Hopefully he’d just move on. Never look back.

Dick wound up scaling a security tower, all but ready to reach the top and hurl himself from it to put an end to things. Of course he wouldn’t. He couldn’t do that to Barbara and Tim. And after all of this he felt that he had a better understanding of Jason. Maybe it hadn’t been that long that Dick had been trapped in Arkham, but it was like hell on earth. Two years there and even HE might develop a crazy plan to murder Bruce!

At the end of the climb Dick found a break in the fencing that would allow him to jump to the next building over. It was still a part of Arkham, but at this rate he was pretty sure that where he had been was completely enclosed, so maybe he’d have more luck over there. The jump was just far enough that he wasn’t sure he could make it. Normally he’d throw himself from rooftop to rooftop without a second thought, but he was hurt, and he didn’t have a lot of room to get a running start.

“He’d fly through the air with the greatest of ease…” Dick started to sing his favorite song. A goofy little ditty his mother had taught him. “A daring young man on the flying trapeze.” He backed up as far as he could go and stared at the jump ahead of him. “His movements were graceful, all the girls he could please…” One more deep breath. He’d finish the chorus after the jump. He’d land it and sing that old jig about the handsome young trapeze artist whose talent could sweep women off their feet. Feet slapping the wet walkway as he ran, he got ready to throw himself with all of his weight.

Of course, there was that odd bit at the end of the song about how the woman in question became more masculine and learned the trapeze herself and…wait, was the brave young man on the flying trapeze supposed to be a girl?

That last thought lingered in Dick’s head as he flew over the fence below and over to the far roof. His jump didn’t quite put him over far enough to land on his feet, but he caught the ledge and was confident that he could pull himself up…

…until it started to crumble under his weight.

“No!”

He scrambled, his hands scraping at the surface of the rough tiles, scraping against the rough surface and slicking them more with his own blood, making it even harder to find something to hold onto.

The ledge gave out and he fell. He couldn’t even think to scream. It felt like the air was sucked right out of his lungs. Could this really be it?

CRASH!

Dick landed flat on his back on a slab of rusted metal roofing and it gave out under his weight, dropping him even further still. Were it not for that first slab, he likely wouldn’t have survived the impact. However, the second impact was bad enough that Dick could feel a few cracked ribs. “Fuuuuck.”

“Oh, we have a visitor!”

Dick sat upright at the first female voice he’d heard in Arkham (the motion aggravated his newly cracked ribs, but he did his best to stifle the grunt that came with the movement).

“He looks delicious, mother.”

Mother? Dick didn’t think there would be any family units in Arkham…save for maybe the Royal Flush Gang, but they certainly hadn’t commented on how he might taste before.

“You’re so eager to learn to hunt, boy.” The voice of the father was more familiar, but Dick couldn’t quite place it. “Go and find him. But don’t kill him. He may appease the Groom.”

The groom? Hunt? Dick just wanted to curl up into a ball and forget all of the nonsense going on around him, but a shadow passed by him and he knew that he couldn’t stay in one place for long. A nearby crawl space let him inside a wall where he slid along, hoping not to be heard as he moved. There were numerous holes and cracks in the wall that let him see through to the other side, and every now and then he saw another shadow. He was trapped in a small extension of Arkham with a family all out to get him.

Creeping between the walls and around old dusty objects that were likely kept aside for storage, Dick found his way to an open area with light streaming in from a window. He stuck his head out only to notice the silhouette of a tall man just up ahead. He pulled back quickly and covered his mouth to keep quiet as his heart thudded in his chest. But aside from the typical creaks and sounds of the side building, there was nothing. He leaned out again as a flash of lightning illuminated the room, and that’s when Dick spotted the rope connected to the silhouette. He stepped out slowly and the man didn’t move. He was hanging. Dead.

Dick swallowed his fear and approached to find that it was Scarecrow, hanged by the very noose he used to wear as part of his spine-chilling costume. “Finally out of our misery, huh?” Dick hadn’t forgiven Crane for what he’d done. How he’d manipulated Jason’s anger, hurt Tim, and ruined Bruce. Were it not for Scarecrow’s horrible plan, their lives could have gone on just…just as…

What about Jason?

Would Jason have come back to them?

Would he have enacted a plan to kill them on his own?

Whatever the consequences, without Scarecrow, there would be no Red Hood.

Was that worth it? Worth losing Bruce and Alfred?

Enclosed in Scarecrow’s hand was a document, smeared with blood. Dick carefully pried it from his grasp and gave it a quick once over.

-

From: h.strange@arkham.us.com  
To: a.waller@blackgate.us.com  
Subject: Dissociative District Attorney

Ms. Waller,

I conducted another interview with one of the inmates you had transferred here from Blackgate Penitentiary, Harvey Dent, this afternoon and have to agree with your suspicions. In the course of a forty minute interview, I had a wide exposure to all four of Dent’s expressed personalities (as near as I could tell two brothers, their father, and their mother). They seem primarily concerned with some life-threatening event, though there was little consistency between the event having already happened or threatening imminent arrival.

The clarity of his delusion, and performative nature of the personalities’ expression certainly suggests malingering. I admittedly fall in the Furstenburg camp of categorical skepticism of the Dissociative Personality Disorder. But Dent’s case seems clearly invented by an attention-seeking patient, more likely symptoms of gross narcissism and obsessive-compulsive disorder, similar to how he acted before his E-22 treatments. I will continue with shock therapy and E-22 treatments and keep you updated on progress.

Sincerely, Dr. Hugo Strange

-

Dick shuddered at the thought of Harvey being even crazier than he already was. Dick had seen the change as it initially happened. He was there when the esteemed district attorney became a madman with a split personality. To think that he could be even more split was…disturbing. And to make matters worse, it sounded like Waller was involved with the strange compound treatment over at Blackgate. Just what was going on behind closed doors at these facilities?

“He’s at the scarecrow, mother!”

“Get him! Anything to appease the Groom!”

Dick wound up chased around the place. He considered stopping to face the family, but he couldn’t risk them overpowering him. If they had done that to Crane, who could say what they’d do to him.

Hiding under desks, crawling between walls, and squeezing between narrow passageways later, Dick finally came across a door to a dimly lit area. He rushed over to it and slammed it shut behind him, quickly seeking out heavy desks and objects to barricade it. When he finally took a step back he could see Two-Face at the window, grinning from ear to…well if he had another ear...

“Mother, he got away.”

“It’s because you were too slow!”

“It’s okay.”

“He’ll be with the Groom soon.”

Dick shuddered upon realizing that the odd Arkham family had been just the one man. One man, two faces, and a split psyche now shattered. These experiments with Compound E-22 were doing more damage than anyone had let on. To break those who already seemed so broken was a feat that he honestly didn’t think possible.

Having caught his breath and gained confidence that Two-Face was going to leave him alone, Dick took stock of where he was now and realized that where he had been was connected to the Arkham Vocational Building. The room he was in now was full of sewing machines and various other crafts that had been allowed for inmates to keep themselves occupied. It was a little hard to imagine any of Arkham’s usual crazies sitting down to sew anything, but mannequins were covered with various simple dresses and…

Dick was a bit confused to see a makeshift Robin costume on one mannequin, which had been left in a sort of place of honor in the room, in front of bloody writing.

‘TO MAKE A HOUSE A HOME’

“If ever there was a more ominous message,” Dick mumbled. Ignoring the putrid smell of rotting flesh nearby, he picked up a discarded document left at the foot of the Robin mannequin.

-

Case Number 196  
Patient: Slade Wilson  
Consultation Date: 2018.02.14  
Initial Date of Patient Admission: 1980.12.24  
Patient Age: 51  
Gender: Male  
Observing Physician: Dr. Hugo Strange

THERAPY STATUS:

Lucid dreaming figures remain as murky as ever; Wilson claims near constant control of his dream state. Highly arrhythmic REM/NREM. Morphogenic Engine activity plateaus at 90 PPM.

DIAGNOSTICS: 

Heavy bronchial accumulation. The rashes associated with hormone therapy have receded and vanished since we stopped using latex tubing.

INTERVIEW NOTES:

Wilson remains a frustrating interview subject; he’s still trying to tell us what he thinks we want to hear, while studiously avoiding certain elements of the truth. His family life remains an obvious fiction as the deviant sexual nature of his relationship with one Tara Markov remains a matter of public record. When I confronted him with the photographs of his known associate still at large, the Arkham Knight, he responded with a mixture of laughter and anger, and restraints were issued.

He similarly refuses to discuss his victims, both categorically and specifically. When I showed him pictures of his fellow inmates he would not admit that they were dead or mutilated.

He is still claiming advancement in the Morphogenic Engine program that he has not yet achieved, said that he could clearly hear the voice of the One Who Laughs just by closing his eyes. Clearly he’s still trying to play his doctors for fools. I won’t speculate what he expects to gain by it.

-

Dick sighed. Having worked personally with Tara, he knew better what had been there between the two of them. It was unforgivable for Slade to take advantage of a malleable young girl but…the thought of the gruff man had elicited some feelings in Dick himself that he didn’t like to acknowledge. Over and over again he had to tell himself that it was just a natural response to the adrenaline that he felt whenever he crossed paths with Deathstroke. But the occasional flirtation on the old man's part didn't make things any easier.

Of course, now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. After all, if someone was obsessed with Robin in a place like this, he could be in real trouble.

He stepped around the shrine to his former alter ego and was faced with something he was completely unprepared for. The horrifying scene made him puke bile and dry heave for a long time. The smell didn’t make it any better.

Lying on a gurney was a naked man who had been horribly mutilated; his pectorals had been carved in order to raise the flesh and muscle in such a way to make them appear like breasts. His genitals had been removed and the space between his legs had been sliced vertically as if to resemble a woman’s genitalia.

And worst of all: his head had been removed and placed between his legs while his ankles were held up in stirrups. It was a sick parody of the miracle of childbirth; perverted by mutilation and death.

Dick thought about Two-Face’s words of warning. There was some ‘groom’ there who just might be looking for a bride…Dick hadn’t considered what that meant, but he had yet to encounter any women in Arkham…

Now he understood better what horrors that truly entailed.

Dick couldn’t point the camera at that horrible scene. He couldn’t let that image out into the world. But when he had nothing left to cough up, he still turned it on, kept it pointed at the ground as he whispered, “A man’s body, mutilated and arranged to…to mock the moment of birth. This is the kind of thing that a guy can’t see without…changing…changing beyond repair…

“Babs…Tim…Jay…I used to think that I wanted a family someday…I mean, after learning about Damian, I’ll admit it’s seemed even less like a possibility for people like us. But after this I…How can the things I’ve seen here be real? I know that it’s Arkham…I know how corrupt this place always was but…This is too much.”

Dick had to find the strength to leave the scene and soon came upon a door. He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, and tried the doorknob.

Locked. He exhaled, already thinking back to where he’d have to try next. He looked up at the window on the door and it felt like the air had been knocked right out of him. He was face to face with an inmate with one single eye glinting in the dim light. Upon seeing Dick, a disturbing smile appeared on the man’s face.

“It’s really you!”

It took Dick’s eyes a moment to adjust, but there was no mistaking the one-eyed gaze. Before he could even say anything, though, the man had turned to head down the hall where there were unlocked doors.

“Slade?”

So Slade had gotten free. It wasn’t overly surprising. The man was resourceful, after all, and one of the toughest people Dick had ever known. Even Bruce often said that Deathstroke was an enemy best dealt with from afar. Of course, Dick had dealt with Slade up close many a time in spite of Bruce’s warnings. The man had haunted Dick’s dreams for years (both as a threat and as something that stirred a certain heat in his gut). Their first encounter had been memorable and every one since had become a sort of dance between them. They had a bad history, but a mutual respect.

Or, at least, that’s what Dick liked to believe.

“I’m sorry if I startled you. It must be shocking…after all this time I…I don’t look like I did. But it’s okay. I can still help you.”

Dick took a few nervous steps back as Slade’s voice drew nearer. What he was saying didn’t make much sense. He and Slade may have had a history, but it wasn't an overly helpful game of give and take between them.

Slade had been treated with E-22. Dick had been there when they hooked him up to those awful tubes in the strange sphere. And all inmates who had undergone treatment were deeply disturbed now…Dick being an exception (or at least he hoped). Of course his own treatment had been much different. He hated to think that torture was somehow the gentler version of treatment.

A disturbed Deathstroke, of course, seemed like a nightmare in and of itself. Dick ducked under a table and waited until Slade passed before making a break for it in the direction where he had come in.

“Ah! There you…You’re not him…That’s a shame, but I suppose it’s okay. You look so much like him. Yes…This could be perfect.”

Dick was too busy running to bother considering Slade’s words. He had to find a place to hide. Maybe he could have taken Harvey in a fight, but there was no chance that he’d beat Deathstroke. Not in his current state…Hell, maybe not even if he was in peak shape. Slade was on Bruce’s level and, as much as Dick liked to believe that he was too, he knew from experience that Slade could kick his ass if he wanted to.

“Where are you going, Darling? It’s alright. I only want to make things right.”

Darling? Something was definitely wrong with Slade.

Eventually Dick came upon a couple of storage lockers. He closed himself into one, hoping to wait just until Slade was a little further away so that he could get out of there and continue to look for a way out of there. He felt bad for Slade, sure, but that didn’t mean he had to give in to the guy.

“When I at last had found my love, I asked my songbird, ‘what lies ahead?’”

Great, Dick thought. Now he was singing.

Everything that Slade was doing was disturbingly out of character and unnerving. Why was he obsessing over Robin? Why was he acting like a lovestruck kid?

“Will we kill batman day after day? Here’s what my songbird said…”

Only then did it click that Slade wasn’t obsessing over him. The assassin was obsessing over Jason.

Dick honestly hadn’t given it much thought, but Slade had been a big part of the Arkham Knight’s plan. He was the Knight’s second in command. He was in charge of the army Jason had accumulated…Why was that? When had the two of them had the opportunity to get acquainted? What was the nature of their cooperation? Considering what Slade had been doing with Tara, Dick began to worry that Jason may have been taken advantage of yet again. To think that anyone would treat a Robin the way that Joker had was disgusting enough. Was there really no reprieve for Jason?

Slade would pay for whatever he did to Jason.

“Que sera, sera…”

After Dick made it out of Arkham. Yeah. Definitely.

CLICK!

Dick yelped, surprised by the sound of something hitting the locker he was stuck in. “S-Slade?”

“Shh shhh. Don’t worry, darling. I’ll take good care of you.”

Dick tried to open the locker only to find that the door was being held in place by something.

“Slade, don’t do this!”

“Don’t worry.” Dick felt the locker tilt back and he braced for impact only to realize that it was being held at an angle and…wheeled? Slade must have slipped it onto a hand truck and was now being moved around.

“Where are you taking me?” Dick asked, accepting that there was nothing he could do for now.

“You look so much like my Songbird. Truly the epitome of perfection, that boy was,” Slade said, ignoring Dick’s question. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw him here. That sick fucking clown wanted to make sure that the fall of Arkham would mean the end of his little side project. Paid me—a master assassin—to kill a young man who had been kept and tortured for two years, as if Batman dropping the place on him wouldn’t do the job.”

Dick felt awful. Jason wasn’t really one to stop by and talk about his experiences, so what Dick knew about his circumstances came mostly from what little information Bruce had to offer before Knightfall and what information Barbara had collected. They had confirmed that Jason had spent approximately two years in Arkham. It wasn’t hard to guess what kind of horrors he’d been subjected to. But to think that when the Joker enacted his plan to create Joker-Venom and break out of Arkham, Jason had still been there and…and Joker had planned to kill him.

“You saved him,” Dick said softly, understanding what had really happened. Slade wasn't one of Jason's tormentors, he was his hero. “Instead of killing him, you saved him.”

“Instead of carrying out my contract for the clown, he paid me to start a contract with him,” Slade corrected. “Stole the money right out from under Batman’s nose.”

“A contract?”

“He kept a steady cash flow to supply us with everything that we needed to launch a true assault on Gotham. It was going to be his magnum opus. But he couldn’t sleep at night. He couldn’t stop screaming. He had certain actions ingrained into his mind. He was so broken, so I took the time to rebuild him.”

It hadn’t occurred to Dick that Jason was anywhere but rock bottom when he attacked Gotham as the Arkham Knight. He equated the actions with those of a madman and believed that Jason's encounter with Bruce had helped to bring him back. But…Jason had led an entire army. He had managed to outsmart Bruce time and time again. He had to have at least some sense. Could it really be that Slade had been the one to keep Jason from becoming something even darker?

“He was perfect. He made sure to keep me paid, but the truth was, I just wanted to see him through to the end. I wanted the Bat to pay for what had been done to him almost as much as he wanted the Bat to pay. But then the Bat corrupted him. He took my songbird away and told him lies to win him over. I was angry. I wanted him back.”

“Jason’s doing better,” Dick reassured Slade, only half lying. “Bruce wasn’t able to help him the way that he wanted to, but Jason found his own way back. He’s a hero. Maybe we don’t see eye to eye, but he’s doing good.”

The locker was stood upright for a moment and Slade stepped around so that Dick could see that one icy-blue eye peering in at him through the slits in the door. “My songbird is GONE!” Slade punched at the locker door hard enough that it indented alarmingly close to Dick’s face. “Stolen from me in his prime!” Slade’s expression softened. “But that’s okay now. Now…I’ll make a new songbird.” He leaned back and, for the first time Dick realized that he wasn’t dressed in a jumpsuit but rather a poorly made tuxedo…

“What’re you doing?”

“Shhh. Rest now, Darling. There’s a lot of work ahead of us. You’ll need your strength.”

Something sprayed in through the slits and Dick panicked. He tried to hold his breath just a little too late and could taste the substance and it burned at his eyes. Before long he had to suck in another breath and it took full effect. He felt dizzy. The Rorschach images swam through is head again as his eyelids felt heavier. He tried to stay awake, but his body was already exhausted, and it gave in to the spray happily.

*

“Please…Please…No more…I can’t…”

“I said shut up!”

CRACK!

Dick awoke with a start. Upon finding that he was still in the dented locker, he peered out of the slits just in time to watch Slade kill some poor guy by actually crushing his skull with his bare hands. The sight and sound alone was enough to make Dick start hyperventilating and his still drowsy mind slipped out of consciousness again.

*

“Not good enough! Not good enough! You’re not even worthy of carrying my child! You’ll never make my songbird!”

Dick opened his eyes to the sound of begging. He peered through the slits again just as Slade threw a naked man’s face down against a table saw. Blood sprayed all the way over to the locker, some of it even making it through the slits and onto Dick’s face. Bile rose in his throat and he tried to get leverage with his knees to force the door open. He had to get out of there. Slade was insane. The E-22 treatment had successfully broken him and left behind an even more dangerous man.

The sound of shifting in the locker alerted Slade to his captor's cognizance. He looked right at Dick through the slits and chuckled. “Getting eager, darling? I think you’re the best candidate yet. Too small to be my bird, but you do look a lot like him. I’m sure our child will be perfect.”

Dick kicked against the locker in a frenzy. “The fuck are you talking about? Let me go, you sick fuck!”

“Heh. You certainly sound like him. Don’t worry, darling. Your turn is coming. I think you’ll do nicely. Our child will be perfect. Not like my other disappointing offspring. No. Our child will be as perfect as my songbird was.”

Slade made his way over to the locker and, with one push, shoved it onto its side. Dick’s head slammed hard against the metal and he was knocked out yet again.


	7. See the Humor - Jason Todd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason's mind truly breaks as he's faced with a new threat that brings back old memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Miss me?
> 
> Still working on this, I promise. I've got fun plans with this...and by fun I mean Outlast-style messed up.
> 
> Anywho, this chapter includes our Arkham version of Dr. Trager! Anybody who remembers that name knows what's coming! Hope you've got the stomach for it!

Jason’s head was swimming. He could hear screams and laughter and…wheels…He was right back in the bowels of Arkham, bound and awaiting his next visitor. The most he could hope for was that they’d slip up and put him out of his misery while the Joker wasn’t there to stop them.

[Don’t worry. Heheh. I’d never let you go.]

Jason awoke, gasping for air, and tried to move only to feel something around his wrists and ankles. He couldn’t move, and yet he was going somewhere.

“Welcome back, little bird. You’ve been so quiet, I was afraid you weren’t enjoying the ride.” SNORT!

Pyg.

“Whrr…ungh.” Jason tried to speak, but his head continued to throb. This wasn’t like his usual migraines. It felt like he was deeply submerged under water and the pressure was threatening to crush his skull.

And, for whatever reason, the Joker was right there with him…in person this time…

[Bit of bad luck there, Robi-poo,] the Joker said. He danced along with Jason as he was wheeled through the halls of Arkham. [I mean sure, now the Tweedles can’t get you, but Pyg just LOVED testing your limits. Remember? Ooh, tell me you remember the surgeries!]

Of course he remembered the surgeries, if they could even be called that. No anesthetic. Just a madman with a scalpel told to fix him up when his ribs shifted, or his bones broke. His left arm still popped out of its socket often because of the shitty job Pyg did of fixing him up after Bane had a go at him.

“Ahh, here we are.”

Though his vision was warped at the edges, Jason knew where he was; he was back at the main lobby where he’d fallen when Bane first attacked and…the exit was open.

The doors were wide open, beckoning for him.

Jason strained, realizing that what was holding him were zip ties. The ones on his wrists were already cutting into skin and he was bleeding on the handles of the wheelchair Pyg had been pushing him around in.

“You know, I love the mountain air up here at night,” Pyg taunted from behind Jason. “You look like you could use some fresh air. Go on! Take a stroll! I’ll wait here.” SNORT!

Jason strained against the ties again, desperate to take the freak up on his offer, however fake it was.

“Go on! Run free! I won’t stop you.” SNORT!

Jason leaned back in the wheelchair, begrudgingly accepting that there was nothing he could do. Struggling only brought him more pain and gave the man satisfaction and he didn’t want to offer that.

“No?” SNORT! “Alright then. Nose to the grindstone. I like that. Well, we’d better get moving then.” He wheeled Jason backwards, stepping into the old-fashioned elevator that Jason had believed to be broken. He inserted a key to the control panel before choosing the top floor. Jason watched in somber disappointment as the open door moved out of view

He kept his eyes trained on the elevator’s gates as he watched floor by floor move down below them. Now the thought of following some blood trail seemed just silly.

[Too bad, huh? The exit was so close too! Haha!]

It was like the Joker was worming his way out of Jason’s head and out into the real world, only Pyg didn’t notice the clown bouncing about the elevator, so it wasn't as real as it sounded...felt.

[And this little piggy’s probably going to carve you up like a Christmas ham! Wait. I think I have my metaphors crossed. He’s the pig, you’re the bird. How about Thanksgiving turkey? Oh, whatever he does I’m sure you’ll look scrumptious!]

SNORT! “I must say, you’re being awfully quiet, my feathered friend,” Pyg commended as the elevator came to a halt at a floor where screams could be heard nearby. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or disappointed. I thought birds loved to sing, after all.”

“Not a bird,” Jason ground out, tensing his hands against the binds keeping them on the armrests. He was getting really tired of all the falsely endearing bird nicknames. They made his skin crawl.

“That’s right. What were you playing at last?” SNORT! “Arkham’s shining knight? Some help you were.”

[Heheh. If only he knew, right Birdy? You may sound like the little girl in the red hood, but you and I know you’re actually the big bad wolf, here to blow this place down!] The Joker stepped out of the elevator first gleefully exclaiming at what he found. [Oh, we’re just going to have so much fun! Look at all the little toys he left for us!]

Jason winced as he was wheeled out and the first thing he came across was a horribly mutilated man, bound to a gurney. Flies had nested in his abdomen, but he still turned his head and looked right into Jason’s eyes. “No…No escape…No end…”

Just past him was the screaming man. He was naked, but his skin hardly looked like skin at all. It was so dry and cracked that his thrashing tore it open in various places. He had no arms below the elbows and…no genitals. None of the wounds where these had been removed had been treated and they were festering, no doubt doomed to rot like the other man if left alone much longer.

Everything reeked of death, which only made the lack of actual corpses that much more disturbing.

“Why?” Jason managed to rasp out as Pyg continued to wheel him down another hall full of even more atrocities.

SNORT! “Because it’s my job as a doctor!” Jason wanted to throw up at that. “I could hardly believe my ears when Mr. Strange came to my cell and offered me a job. I was finally allowed to test the limits of the human body! Fully funded!” He snorted gleefully as he turned into a medical bay with various shelves overturned, surgical trays scattered on the floor with various tools lying around, and numerous beds; some of which with similarly decaying bodies still shifting in them. Most prominent was the body bound in stirrups in the middle of the room on what had to have been the only actual operating table.

“Back for more, Pyg? Ha! You haven’t broken me. You won’t break me! Nobody breaks the Black Mask!”

Jason kept his head down. The voice of the man was different from what he could remember—and there was that little note in Bruce’s files about Roman being prone to using body doubles nagging in the back of his mind—but the last thing he wanted was to deal with Black Mask in this insane Arkham nightmare, even if it was just one of his many stooges.

[Huh. He looked a lot deader last time, didn’t he?] The Joker leaned over the man and Jason could all but imagine what horrors the clown could see. [Well…actually, not a huge difference here. I mean, he’s not splattered all over the pavement, but he's definitely looked better! Haha! Maybe Piggy-Wiggly will be nice and let you push him out of another window? A fall from up here would probably do the trick!]

Jason scoffed at the thought but kept his head down just the same. Roman was one sick fuck, after all. No one would be upset if he were to kill him…again…

[It’s not like Batsy’s around to judge you for it.]

He closed his eyes and held his breath, realizing to his horror that he was considering taking advice from a hallucination of his greatest enemy. Staying grounded was getting increasingly difficult. At this rate he was relatively certain that the Deacon had injected him with some form of the Joker Venom that had brought the whole asylum down a couple years back.

[Whatever makes you happy, Robi-poo!]

Having the Joker around as a fucked-up imaginary friend made Jason anything but happy.

“Into the OR we go!” Pyg said with a happy hum, ignoring Black Mask’s shouts in favor of pushing Jason’s wheelchair into bathroom, of all places. There, he set Jason up so that he was facing the grubby mirrors. Seeing his own reflection was shocking. His face looked pretty messed up; there was blood along his hairline, suggesting that he’d sustained an injury he couldn’t even recall getting. Sometimes the worst head injuries were easy to ignore. It was all he could do to hope he wasn't too badly concussed.

[Well aren’t you just the picture of perfect health! Hahaha! Remember, Robi-poo? Remember when I kept you tied up in the basement? Remember how long it was before I showed you your own reflection? Remember? Ooh, tell me you remember!] Joker danced about excitedly before reaching out towards Jason’s cheek possessively. He flinched away, forgetting for a brief moment that the clown wasn’t really there.

“No need to worry,” SNORT! “I’m excellent with my tools. I just want to make sure that this is recorded for posterity’s sake! Have you got a phone on you? One of those fancy little smart-things the kids use these days maybe?”

Jason writhed under Pyg’s touch as the man felt him up, searching for something that he didn’t have. Pyg did manage to find the flip phone, however, only to flip it open and snort. “This won’t do. Terrible quality. I’ll bet the camera doesn’t even work.”

“No wait!”

Pyg tried to snap the phone in half, but the old thing proved to be sturdier than he had anticipated. After a couple of pathetic attempts he cast it aside.

“Hang on,” SNORT! “I think I have something here…” He left Jason to dig through his supplies and returned with an old digital cam-corder. He placed it on the edge of the sink in front of the mirror Jason was facing and poked at it until a bright light came on, making Jason’s eyes instinctively narrow to filter some of the light. As they adjusted Jason came to the horrible realization that Pyg wasn’t wearing some brown jumpsuit under his apron; he was buck-fucking-naked. Bile kicked at the back of Jason’s throat at the sight of that leathery lard-ass, just as necrotic as the rest of the tormented inmates he’d come across.

“What are you going to do to me?” Jason found the courage to ask as Pyg went back to the tray of tools (many of which didn’t look like they were meant for surgical purposes at all, from what Jason could tell). “I’m not a patient here. Your little experiments won’t be tolerated on an outsider.” He was pushing his luck, hoping that Pyg’s insanity was trumping over his sense of reason…not that the man seemed anything but insane in the first place… And yet somehow, he’d been employed there rather than kept in a cell.

SNORT! “Oh, just a little off the top, maybe. Little nip. Little Tuck.” He returned to Jason with a large, bloody butcher knife. “Can’t have you looking anything less than your best, just like how I took care of you for the Joker.” SNORT!

Jason tensed as the dulled blade was dragged from his neck, over his shoulder, and along his right arm teasingly. Back when he’d been trapped there, it was Pyg’s job to stitch him back up. While the treatments weren’t meant to be painless, they were done purposefully to keep him alive. This? This was just the machinations of a madman.

[I hear that when you lose your head, your brain continues to function for a moment,] Joker noted, leaning against the sink next to the camera. [Wouldn’t it be weird if he made you watch your own beheading on film? Hahaha!]

Jason bit his bottom lip as Pyg applied some pressure while the knife was just below the bend of his arm. He wasn’t ready for this. There was no talking his way out of it. He’d been thrown around, attacked, and threatened but…somehow it still hadn’t really crossed his mind that he might lose something here. Maybe his life—he's sort of braced for that, though he was still trying to make it out. His sanity was already all-but gone. But his arm? Would he be forced to stay alive like the others here? Would he become necrotic and wither away slowly?

Pyg raised the knife quickly, making Jason’s heart stop and his eyes squeeze shut. A chuckling snort broke the pregnant silence and he opened his eyes to find Pyg moving back to his tray of tools.

[Ooh, he really had you with that one, huh? Hehe. Come on. We both know you can take some pain. So, he takes your favorite arm. You’re the one who brags about being ambidextrous with a gun! You’ll just be doing a lot more shooting with Lefty!]

Pyg returned again, this time with an actual scalpel. Jason wasn’t sure if he liked that more or less than the last option. His heart had gone from slowing to pounding in his chest hard enough that he could feel his pulse in his ears. His head throbbed with a dull ache and he wondered if the injury he’d been ignoring was going to put him out of his misery before Pyg could.

“Such a nice jawline. Most of my dollotrons don’t look as good as you. It’s rather annoying.” SNORT!

Pyg traced the tip of the scalpel along Jason’s forehead, making light cuts that barely drew blood. Jason couldn’t even feel them over the throbbing in his skull. But then the man moved to his scar, which got him to thrash in the wheelchair, making the scalpel plunge too deeply into the arch of the ‘J’ Joker had left on him.

“Now that won’t do,” SNORT! “A good patient must always hold still!” He gripped Jason’s chin in his chubby hand and brought his pig-like face closer as he tried to trace the ‘J.’

“No!” Jason jerked back before throwing his weight forward hard enough to slam his forehead into Pyg’s nose (or at least the holes in his head where his nose should have been). In a fit of rage, Pyg swiped a little too close to Jason’s face and managed to cut a line from the corner of his lips up to the bottom of the ‘J.’

“Little birdy wants to play like that then, huh?” SNORT!

Pyg moved back to his tray, leaving Jason with his jaw clenched as he tried to think past the pain. His reflection showed that his mouth had been extended in a mock of a smile, right up to the Joker’s claiming mark.

[They say the greatest form of flattery is mimicry,] the Joker said, poking at his own face in the mirror.

“I’m not you.” Jason growled.

“What was that?” SNORT!

[Oh please. You could be my own son! I practically raised you! Certainly more than the Bat did! I mean, why aren’t you Batman or Bat-Guy or something? Hm? Is it because Red Hood seemed so much better? I can’t blame you. Who wouldn’t want to be more like me? Hahaha!]

“Shut up!” Jason thrashed in his seat again, straining hard enough that the zip ties around his wrists stretched, almost as if he could pop them off with just a little more effort. “Shut up, shut up, shut up, damnit!”

SNORT! “So rude! I suppose that’s what I have to expect from someone who’s been following that dreadful Deacon around.”

Jason froze, thinking back to the creepy, self-proclaimed evangelist who had drugged him.

“I hope you haven’t been letting him confuse you with all of his—” SNORT! “—holier-than-thou bible thumping.” Pyg traced his fingers over the tools on his tray. “No offense to the man, but I sometimes worry he might be just a little bit—”

Pyg chose something but stepped behind Jason, just out of his peripheral vision. He could feel a fat hand running along the seat of the wheelchair as the madman paced around. He came to Jason’s other side just a little too quickly, a pair of disturbingly long, rusty scissors pointed alarmingly close to his face.

“—crazy.”

Jason couldn’t stop the pathetic sound that escaped him as he flinched away from the blades. He couldn’t help himself anymore. He sniffled, his body shaking uncontrollably as he was wracked with tears.

[Awww. Piggy USED to reduce you to tears too.] Joker leaned in from behind the wheelchair, talking right next to Jason’s ear on the opposite side from where Pyg had the scissors pointed at him. [I remember like it was yesterday! Heh. It became quite the game, didn’t it? See who could make the little bird sing loudest.] Jason swore he could feel Joker’s hot breath in his ear as the clown whispered, [Of course, I always won. Didn’t I?]

And just like that, Pyg went back to his tray and set the scissors down.

[Party pooper! I really thought he was going to do it that time!] Joker complained, straightening up.

VRRRRR!

Jason all but convulsed against his binds at the high-pitched sound of an electric bone-saw. The shock made his jaw clench, causing him to bite partway through his tongue. Pyg set the bone-saw down and snorted out a creepy laugh. “I guess it’s understandable; when people get scared, they turn to their gods for answers. Me? I much prefer something you can hold in your hands.”

Pyg picked the scissors back up and returned to Jason. He opened the blades, slipped the pointer finger of Jason’s right hand onto the lower blade, and sliced without a moment’s hesitation.

“NNGAAAAAAH!”

[Hahaha! Whoo! That came out of nowhere!]

“Paying attention?” Pyg slapped Jason’s cheek almost playfully, snorting excitedly. “Don’t pass out on me! There’s still so much to do!”

Joker applauded enthusiastically as Pyg walked around and proceeded to snip off the ring finger on Jason’s left hand.

“AAAAAUUGH!” Jason’s throat burned as he screamed it raw. Blood seeped out of his mouth from his tongue—some of it spilling out of the fresh gash on his cheek.

Pyg stroked his hand along Jason’s bloody face almost affectionately. “There. Better now, right? I’ll bet you feel so much lighter.” SNORT! “Do you see what we’ve accomplished here? We’ve made the consumer into the means of production! This treatment’s going to sell itself!”

Jason couldn’t breathe right. He was wracked with sobs. Knowing that it wasn’t over, he felt despair closing in. All he could think was how he’d prefer to just die rather than go through this hell all over again.

[Oh, you’ve been through worse. Quit being such a baby!]

“Sit tight, little bird!” SNORT! “I have to tend to a few other patients. I’ll be back soon to move on to the next step.” Pyg snipped the scissors a few times before walking out the door, leaving Jason alone with his thoughts and the camera.

[Where is he going? How dare he walk out on you! Doesn’t he know who you are? You haven’t bled nearly enough yet! Quick, call him back!]

Jason thought about swallowing his tongue only to be brought right back to those years under Arkham. He’d tried just that a few times. After the first time Harley made sure that he was humiliatingly gagged for a month—open-mouthed so she could force a tube down his throat to feed him. After the second time he tried, Joker threatened to cut his tongue out before having Pyg wire his mouth shut. He wasn’t even allowed to eat when that happened.

[What’s the matter, Snookums? Cat got your tongue? Hahaha!]

Jason strained against his binds, once again determined to punch his hallucination in the face. But this time he realized that there was a little more give. He’d been straining against them so long that they were loose. That and the mix of blood from where they dug into his skin and his now-missing fingers made his hands slick. He pulled and pulled, but they were still just a little too tight to squeeze out of. He closed his eyes and let out a soft whine before pulling as hard as he could with his right hand. His thumb finally clicked out of place and his hand came free. He quickly used his free hand to dislocate his left thumb and free his other hand. He clicked them back into place and wheeled himself over to Pyg’s tools, stealing the scalpel to cut through the ties on his ankles, finally getting free.

He stumbled out of the wheelchair, catching himself on one of the sinks. Blood spilled from the open wounds on his hands like faucets, dripping crimson down the disgusting drains. He straightened up shakily and tried to turn on the actual faucet to find no water was flowing. It wasn’t a surprise, but he whimpered just the same. Unable to clean his wounds, unable to treat them, he could do little but find a way to staunch the bleeding. Pyg didn’t have any clean medical supplies, but he at least had some dirty gauze on his tray. Jason wrapped his hands hastily, not wanting to get caught on his feet by the monster. The gauze was soaked through almost instantly, but there was nothing else he could do about that. The pain made it hard to think, but he had to push through it.

After tucking the scalpel into his boot and finding his castaway phone, he made his way out of the shitty OR slowly. He was immediately greeted with the soft, guttural moans of Black Mask.

[Aww, can’t we put him out of our misery?] Joker begged, looking the crime lord over once again. [Yeesh. His misery too, it would seem. Haha!]

Curiosity got the better of Jason and he stood over the man. It wasn’t the same guy he’d taken out of a window a little while back, that much was for sure. But the guy seemed to recognize the red bat on his chest all the same.

“Heh. Heheheh. So, he’s got you too. Damn. You almost look like you’re still wearing that red helmet of yours. Can’t escape your true face, huh?”

[Didn’t the BM you offed have a metal mask? This guy’s face is just this weird burnt black mass. Think that makes him official? Not that it really matters. This guy’s hardly a joke compared to a real killer like you.]

In spite of himself, Jason smirked.

“Ah. He’s still alive then,” Black Mask said, letting his head fall back. “What am I saying? Pennyworth saw to it. That thing’s never going to die.”

Jason shuddered at the mention of Alfred. The last thing he wanted to believe was that Alfred had anything to do with Arkham. It just couldn’t be true. Even after hating Bruce for as long as he did…he could never hate Alfred…

“Deacon thinks it can be contained. Ha! Nobody can control that thing!” Black Mask’s voice rose to dangerous volumes, making Jason’s hackles rise. He looked about the treatment room in a panic and dove under a nearby bed to hide. “NOBODY CAN KILL IT! YOU’RE JUST A PAWN! YOU’RE GOING TO DIE! HAHAHA! THEY’RE GOING TO KILL YOU! HEEEEEERE PIGGY PIGGY!”

Jason pressed his bloody, bandaged hand into his mouth and held his breath as Pyg stepped into the room.

SNORT! “Oh, would you be quiet, Roman? Keep squealing like that and you’ll scare my latest patient!” He went into the bathroom where he’d left Jason. “FUCK!”

Jason refused to exhale. His chest felt like it was burning and white spots in his vision threatened to steal his consciousness. But somehow it felt like breathing would be enough to give his position away, and Pyg was still carrying those damned scissors.

Pyg stepped back out and snorted again, now searching the room for signs of where Jason had run off to.

“Should have started with his Achilles tendons. Amateur mistake,” Black Mask taunted. “Maybe burn the bottoms of his feet too. Make every step agony.”

SNORT! Pyg stopped at Black Mask’s gurney and stroked his hand along the man’s exposed chest. “I see what’s happening here. You’re bored. You want a little attention. It’s perfectly understandable. I’m here for you. I’ll give you very special attention.”

Jason didn’t have a good angle to see Black Mask, but he saw Pyg raise those awful scissors and heard them plunge into flesh. At the same moment that Black Mask let out a gurgling sound, Jason finally exhaled and resumed shaking tenfold.

[Well, isn’t he just a peach?] Joker joked. Jason was now imagining him under the bed with him, as if they were just children playing hide and seek. It was sickening. [I thought you were a dark avenger. Aren’t you the one who kills the killers? Come on! You’ve seen this guy kill now! I mean, if the corpses and tortured souls around here were indicative of his inclinations already, I’d say that clinches it! Besides! Sick fuck took your fingers! I say we give him a taste of his own medicine.]

‘We,’ Jason thought, shaking his head silently. There was no ‘we.’ Even as the Arkham Knight, he never once thought of himself as part of the Joker’s schemes.

[Okay, Robi-poo. Any second now we should jump out and surprise him! Right? What if I count to three?]

God, he wished he could shut his hallucination up.

Pyg drew his scissors out of Black Mask—who was certainly not squealing anymore—and began searching the room. “Come out come out wherever you are!”

Jason waited until Pyg was far into the room before crawling out as quietly as he could and creeping over to a bed a little closer to the double doors. Once secure under it, he checked back to watch Pyg flip the bed he’d just been under. The man who had been on top of it landed with a smack on the floor, his head twisting at an awful angle so that it looked like he was staring at Jason.

“Come on, my little birdie!” SNORT!

[Let me at him, coach! Just give me the scalpel! I’ll gut the pig!]

If only.

When it seemed safe enough, Jason crept out again, this time taking cover behind some shelves in the dark corner by the doors. Pyg kept snorting and checking over everything meticulously. But the moment his back was turned again, Jason went for it, sprinting out the doors, down the hall, and back to the elevator. He threw back the gate and stepped inside, desperate to get away from there…

…only to find that the key wasn’t there.

“No…No no no, damnit…”

[Ooh, too bad. How much you want to bet he’s got those keys in his apron?]

“Fuck!” Jason punched the gate before opening it. Only a few steps out into the hall and he saw Pyg step out and face him, scissors at the ready.

“We doing this, sicko?” Jason asked, feeling more antagonistic as he slid the scalpel out of his boot and clenched it tightly in his right hand, hoping that it wouldn’t slip out because of the wet bandages.

SNORT! “I’ll make you regret getting out of the OR!”

[Yes! Now we’re talking! Slice his throat!]

When they were nearly close enough for Pyg to get Jason with the scissors, he dropped down, letting his momentum carry him just a bit as he slipped between the guy’s legs and slashed the scalpel back, deeply slicing into back of Pyg’s right ankle.

“AIIIIIE!”

Pyg dropped to one knee and Jason got up quickly and roundhouse kicked Pyg’s head, making him bash his nose holes against the edge of an occupied gurney. He dropped his scissors and Jason stepped around him and kicked them away before pressing the ball of his foot to Pyg’s sternum and forcing him onto his back. He kept his boot pressed firmly to the man’s chest as he reached into the pocket of the apron and drew out the elevator key.

“Oh, come now. Y-you can’t expect me to just let you leave? You’re sick!” SNORT! “You need proper treatment!”

[Be still my beating heart!] Joker danced around Jason’s periphery gaily. [You took a page right out of BM’s book! Haha! Twisted and terrifying! That’s why you’re my favorite! Move over, Batsy, there’s a new badass after my affections!]

“Piss off,” Jason spat. He was both telling Pyg and his hallucination to leave him alone. He tucked the now bloodied scalpel back into his boot and returned to the elevator. He looked back one last time only to find that Pyg was gone. How could such a large man move that quickly with a bad foot? He didn’t want to know. He pulled back the gate, shut it, and inserted the elevator key, pressing the button for the main lobby.

Maybe he’d lost a lot, but he could still walk out of here. He could still make it. Grayson be damned. At this rate he’d put all of Gotham in his rearview. Ditch the vigilante life. Even though because some fuckers deserved it…maybe he didn’t have to be the one to dish out the justice. He could start over. He could do it this time. Really change.

The elevator stopped abruptly only one floor down and it was all Jason could do to fall against the back wall before Pyg’s scissors could reach him.

“I’M NOT DONE WITH YOU! LET ME FIX YOU!”

Jason couldn’t puzzle out how the man had made it a whole floor down faster than he had with the elevator, but it didn’t matter. The guy was pulling the gate open, closing the distance between the two of them.

It was dificult to avoid the scissors, but Jason caught the gate and slammed it shut on Pyg’s arm, making the madman roar. He continued to try pressing himself through the gap he’d created while Jason rapidly hit the button for the lobby over and over again. He was so close! So fucking close!

Pyg managed to squeeze most of his torso in when the elevator began moving again. He let out a brief, panicked snort and began trying to dislodge himself from his position.

But he was stuck.

[I think I saw this in a movie once. Think it’ll work in real life?]

Jason stepped back and watched as Pyg slowly rose higher and higher while the elevator descended. Finally, the top of the elevator caught at Pyg’s back. It lurched, but continued whirring. An awful crunching sound marked his spine snapping and blood spilled from his mouth as he went limp.

“Heh.”

[Hahaha!]

“Haha.”

[Maybe you didn’t gut the pig, but you certainly juiced him! Hahaha! Look at him! He really thought he could kill you? Nobody kills the Joker’s boy!]

Jason held his sides as he doubled over with laughter. The whole situation suddenly hilarious. Black Mask killed for a second time. Professor Pyg performing second-rate surgeries. The Joker encroaching on his unstable mind. Alfred, of all people, being involved with this whole insane mess. It was so funny. Why couldn’t he see it before.

“Hahahahaha!” He fell back and slid down so that his knees came up. He hugged his face to them and laughed. Maybe Pyg was gone, but so was his easy ride to the exit. Once again, he was trapped. Once again, he’d have to brave the horrors of this twisted Arkham in order to survive. His hands hurt. His face hurt. Everything hurt. And yet he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.

“NO NO NO NO NO DON’T PLEASE!”

The sound of someone shouting snapped Jason back to his senses. He looked up at the shitty top paneling of the elevator. One good hop and he pushed through one and caught his arms on another. He pulled himself up and stepped out over Pyg’s crumpled body.

“YOU DON’T WANT TO DO THIS! JUST THINK IT THROUGH!”

Jason scoffed. He knew that voice. How crazy.

“PLEASE, SLADE!”

Jason took off in a full sprint, readying himself for one hell of a fight.


	8. Broken Bride - Dick Grayson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick awakens to his worst nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!
> 
> So I recently doubled over my research by replaying the Arkham games (sans Origins, though only because I no longer have a PS3). Thanks to that, I've noticed a couple discrepancies that I overlooked in my writing, and for that I'm sorry. I will likely go back and edit this where I deem necessary, but I'd like to finish it first. I promise that the adjustments will be minor and won't affect the story itself so much as characterization.
> 
> I will say, one of the biggest things I missed was that Hugo Strange died in Arkham City...whiiiiich I'm going to go with no he didn't. It's not like Bruce ever found his body (and in Comic logic, that's a clear sign of not being dead, right?). At most I'd have to go back and have Dick be a little surprised to see the 'good doctor' around and operating again.
> 
> *Note: the aforementioned edits have been made! <3*
> 
> Anywho, sorry this chapter took so long! It's surprisingly difficult to explain the sheer terror of this part of Whistleblower when I'm lacking the, uh, body part in danger. Sooo, I chose to go back and replay Whistleblower so that the fear was fresh on the mind.
> 
> Lastly, semi-spoiler, but Dick's storyline is running out and Jason's still got a little ways to go. Because of this, I chose to knock Dick out yet again. A little over-zealous with the unconscious change-over tactic, I know, but it's been working so far, so I'm going to do it at least one last time.
> 
> Sorry this took a while to get posted! I still have plans for how this will end that I'm excited about, so I promise it won't go abandoned. However, I may take a little break from Artham-Outlast when I finally get through Jason's and Dick's stories. At some point I plan to go back and write Outlast 2 with Tim at the wheel, but that will likely take another playthrough on it's own...
> 
> Now go on and enjoy Dick's suffering!

“…bird…”

Dick winced, images of clowns, monsters, blood, and babies danced through his head.

“…iful…bird…”

He could hear distant laughter as his brain threatened to explode in his skull. He tried to press his palms to his temples, but something was wrong. His hands weren’t moving. He wasn’t moving. 

“Rise and shine my beautiful bird.”

Dick’s eyes adjusted to the harsh light of a single lamp over him, placed as if he were on a surgical table. Searching his memories for why he would be on a surgical table, only one horrible thing came to mind.

Slade’s large, calloused hand scraped intimately over Dick’s abdomen, pressing enough to make him feel extreme discomfort. “So slender. Not like MY bird. My bird was young, but he was strong. You…you’ll make a fine mother. I mean, you certainly have excellent bone structure.”

Why was Dick exposed? Why couldn’t he move? His heart thudded in his chest as he tried to grab Slade’s wrist, but only felt pain in his own. “What…what’s happening? Slade, what are you doing?” He realized that his hands were tied with thin rope, cutting deep into his wrists, and it seemed like his ankles were similarly bound. Each of his limbs was tied to the four legs of an overturned wooden table which sat on top of another table. At the end of the table was a table saw, pointed between his legs. “Slade?”

“I’m sorry if I was a little vulgar earlier. You know how a man gets when he wants to get to know a woman better.”

“Get to know a…are you insane? Slade!”

“After the ceremony, when I’ve made an honest woman of you, I promise I’ll be a different man,” Slade said as casually as a man could. “You’re so close to my lost bird, but not quite the same. Together…we can recreate him. I can finally have a family legacy truly worth my while.” He traced his hand along Dick’s exposed thigh. “And you won’t have to worry. I won’t let anything happen to our children. Not like…not like that wretched Bat. The things he allowed his children to suffer…Unforgivable.”

“S-Slade, Jason’s okay.” Slade went still for a moment, so Dick kept pushing. “H-he’s still in Gotham. He let go of his past. He’s no longer the Arkham Knight.”

Slade shook his head. “No…Not my bird. My bird would never just let go. My bird…he used to scream at night. He used to fear his own shadow.”

Who he described didn’t sound like Jason…at least not the Jason Dick knew.

“My bird was broken. His wings had been clipped. That mark on his face would forever remind him of what had been done to him. It took months before he could sleep through a night. I spent every day doing what I could to mend the breaks. I gave him the tools he needed to rebuild himself. And like a phoenix, he rose from the ashes stronger than before.”

The look of pure adoration on Slade’s face was almost as unsettling as his behavior. The way he spoke it sounded like…almost like he actually felt something akin to love for Jason.

“Then he saw the Bat again. He was reduced to the child who’d chosen his own life over his parents’. The boy who looked up to an ideal pitched by a man who was no saner than the monsters he fought. The bird who had been trying so hard to fly was still tied down. My little Icarus flew a little too close to the sun and was dragged to a place worse than hell. But when shown the sun again, he was right back to reaching for it.”

“I can tell you're you’re really all about the bird metaphors and whatnot, but you’re not getting it, Slade. Jason’s fine! Really! He’s doing better!”

“WRONG!” His grip on Dick’s thigh was suddenly bruising. Jagged nails dug into flesh, drawing blood in their wake. “HE’S GONE!”

“Ngh!”

Slade released Dick suddenly and leaned down so that he could press his stubbled cheek against Dick’s thigh. “Oh. Ohh, no, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so short tempered with you. That’s no way to start a marriage.”

“Slade, please. You need to think about this. I’m a guy. You’re a guy. There’s certain things you're talking about that we just can’t do!”

“Shh, A woman…has to suffer some things. It’s not pleasant, I know. But just try to endure. For my sake. For the sake of our children.” Slade flipped a switch and the table saw started spinning. Dick began panting, fear rising quickly as he came to realize just what Slade had in store for him.

Suddenly Slade moved the table Dick was bound to towards the saw.

“SLADE?”

“It’s okay, my pretty bird. It won’t take long. A few snips of the flesh here and there. Cut away everything…vulgar. Have to make a soft place to welcome my seed. I’ll soon fill your belly. Our children will be perfect.”

All reason left Dick in that moment as he was moved closer and closer to the blade. He could hardly think past the fear, but he didn’t dare look away. He struggled against his binds, entirely unaware of the pain he was actually experiencing in his attempts to save himself. “Slade! Slade! NO NO NO NO NO DON’T PLEASE!”

Slade stopped for a moment and smiled down at Dick. “It’s going to be okay. You’re strong. The incision will hurt. And the conception. And birth is never easy. But I’m right here. I’ll make the cut fast. Just…close your eyes and think of our children,” and he began moving Dick towards it again.

“PLEASE, SLADE!”

The sound of the saw cutting into wood left Dick screaming. He could feel the air coming off the blade and his eyes rolled up into his skull as he ran out of breath, preparing for a sort of agony he could only imagine in his worst nightmares.

CRASH!

Dick barely had the sense to open his eyes when the whole table shifted, falling to the side, dropping him and halting the blade. The leg that his left wrist was bound to snapped on impact and Dick hastily used his free hand to work at the ropes keeping him bound. He got his other wrist free and sat up, at least trying to assess his current situation, and watched as Jason wrestled with Slade. “JAY!”

“How dare you interrupt…my…my…Songbird?”

“Fuck. Fuck! What the FUCK are you doing here?”

CRACK!

In spite of the position Slade had just had him in, Dick’s stomach churned when Jason’s fist pressed into the older man’s face, making his skull bounce off the floor with a resounding smack before grabbing him by the hair, raising his head a little, and repeating the process.

“Jay, stop!”

Jason punched him one last time and Slade choked out a mouthful of blood and…Dick shuddered upon seeing a couple of teeth. Jason just sat still on top of Slade, looking down at him with wild eyes.

Seeing Jason there made all of the horrors feel that much worse. Every awful thing Dick had come across was still, to a degree, impossible somehow in his mind. Nothing could be that awful. That twisted…That disturbed.

But he had believed that about Jason as well. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he’d always felt a little apathetic towards his replacement. Bruce had let him be Robin in spite of how violent and unrefined he was. Then they lost him, believing the worst, only to learn years later that worse had happened. Upon learning the Arkham Knight’s true identity, Dick had been confused. If Jason was alive, why would he be so focused on vengeance? Sure, Dick had wanted bad things to happen to Zucco after his parents’ death, but he knew that killing the guy wouldn’t bring them back. He couldn’t even imagine it bringing him any solace. How could Jason believe his vengeance would change anything?

Then Dick learned what had been done to Jason in his time confined beneath Arkham. Videos had been released by various criminals and sent to him. (Of course, they’d have probably sent them to Bruce if he was still around. Breaking the Bat was always the goal…)

The video from the Mad Hatter had been the first and only one Dick watched. Its contents made him sick to his core. He never confronted Jason about the videos. Even mulled over the awful thought that Jason could be receiving them as well, forcing him to relive his own hell.

…that hell that Dick had selfishly dragged him back to.

“Jay, it’s okay. It’s okay. He can’t hurt you anymore,” Dick muttered.

“Heh. Slade? Hurt me? Heheh…Hahahaha!”

That was the first moment Dick really SAW Jason since he’d stumbled onto the scene. One of his pupils was blown, blood was caked up at his hairline and smeared on his face. His mouth had been sliced to make a permanent smile. And worst of all…his hands…He tried to cover his face with his poorly wrapped hands, smearing more blood and letting Dick see that there were fingers missing. That wasn’t something that just happened. Jason had been tortured. Someone had gone out of their way to bring him pain.

And here he was, laughing.

“Jay…you’ve been drugged,” Dick stated, certain that the laughter wasn’t normal in spite of what he understood was Jason’s already fragile state of mind. “We have to get out of here.” He moved to help his unlikely rescuer to his feet only for Jason to lean away from him and get up on his own.

“Not on your life, Dickwad. You and I are NOT close enough for this.”

Dick had all but forgotten his nudity. He blushed hotly and found a grimy jumpsuit nearby. He put it on reluctantly, disturbed by the relief he felt at being covered even though the jumpsuit itself was disgusting. Upon noticing his camcorder sitting on a surgical table nearby, he grabbed it as well. “He’s been trying to recreate you,” he explained, nodding towards Slade. “Fuck, he thought he could use me to recreate you.”

Jason glanced at the table saw and smirked. “That’s an interesting way to go about it. Why the fuck were you naked?”

The last thing Dick wanted to do was bring up trauma for Jason. “I…He’s not in his right mind. He’s been trying to recreate you by training people or by…I mean…He said…” Dick shuddered, reliving the whole nightmarish experience in his head. “I think…he was trying to make a baby.”

Jason glared down at the unconscious man and gave him a solid kick to the head that made Dick wince. “Asshole…You were better than that.” Jason looked over his shoulder for a moment and Dick braced for someone else to show up only to be confused when no one came. “He wasn’t like that…Shut up. Shut up! He was NEVER like you!”

“Jay?”

Jason tensed, staring at Dick like he’d never seen him before. “I…I was just…You have to get out of here,” he suddenly decided. “You should have never come here, dumbass.”

Dick couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I shouldn’t…Jay, are you serious?”

“You’re not cut out for this kind of thing. You’re the boy wonder, after all.” The corner of Jason’s mouth twitched as if what he’d said was amusing.

“I know you don’t have a high opinion of me, but there was something going on here and I was just trying to—”

“Trying to what, get your ass locked up with the rest of the psychos? Trying to prove that you’re as good a detective as Bruce? Heh.” Jason placed his bloody hand over his mouth, trying to hide the smirk. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but you and Bruce have never been good about figuring out the secrets going on in Arkham.”

“That’s not fair.”

“D’awww. Sorry to break it to you, daddy’s boy, but life’s not fair.” Jason looked down at Slade and his strange smile twisted into something warmer. “Honestly thought you’d fair better, but I guess there’s no escaping the madness of this place. Right, old man?” He crouched next to Slade and whispered, “Don’t worry. I didn’t come here to die. You and I both know: I’m going to live forever.”

Dick had seen enough. “Jason, we need to get out of here. Babs can get us checked out. Concoct an antidote to the compound. Then we can—”

“No!” Jason stood upright and started walking towards the main hall. It was all Dick could do to follow after him. “I…there’s something I…”

“Jay, we just need to clear our heads. This place is getting to—”

“I’m just fucking fine! Nothing I haven’t been through before. I just need…Shut up…I need…”

Dick’s heart sank, watching Jason struggle the way that he was; arguing with ghosts and laughing at all the wrong things. He was breaking, and Dick wasn’t the one he needed to put him back together. “Jay, just…slow down for a second. Let’s stop and think about this. We can figure something out.”

Jason stopped abruptly, staring down the hall in the opposite direction from the elevator. Dick followed his line of sight and gasped upon seeing a particularly haggard looking Deacon Blackfire, scribbling out ‘THIS WAY TO SALVATION’ on the wall in blood.

“You!” Jason shouted, bloody fists shaking at his sides. “I’ve been looking for you!”

“Yes. Good. Our savior still stands! I’ve seen to it, my Lord!”

“Savior, huh?” Jason smiled darkly. “I’ll show you no mercy, you fucking rat!” He took off after the man, who seemed eager for the tail.

“No wait!”

Dick tried to go after him but tripped when something sharp pressed into his foot. He hit the floor hard and fought back another shout. They’d probably made enough noise already. Who knows what other attention they’d drawn to the area. He checked his foot and sucked in a breath upon finding the rusty nail embedded in his heel. “As if this place wasn’t enough of a goddamned health hazard.” He pulled it out and cast it aside.

When he finally got back onto his feet, he went after Jason only to lose his trail at a broken window. “Damnit.” There were traces of blood; possibly from Jason’s already bloody hands…Dick hoped it was just that. Jason was already hurt so badly. And maybe he was losing his mind, but he was still enough of a hero to have saved Dick from—

“Where’d you go, Pretty Bird?”

Dick all but dove into the room across the way. His heart felt like it had jumped into his throat. He found the first covered table and scrambled underneath it. Not seconds later, Slade lumbered into the room. “I’m sorry we were interrupted. I know the change can be somewhat jarring.”

Dick put his hands over his mouth, afraid that his uneven breathing would give him away.

“That man before…he meant nothing. He’s not the Songbird I knew. My Songbird was snatched up by the Bat. Ripped away from me!”

Something was thrown violently in the room, making Dick flinch.

“You…You’re trying to leave me too, aren’t you? WHORE! YOU THINK I’LL JUST LET YOU WALK AWAY?”

That was all that Dick wanted; to be able to walk away from all of this! He couldn’t pretend he had a chance of escaping in one piece. Not after seeing the state of Jason’s hands.

No. God, how could he even consider leaving Jason behind? They had to get out of there. Both of them. He wouldn’t leave his brother here. Not again.

“Where are you, slut? When I find you, I’ll teach you to run away from me!”

Slade’s voice was getting further away. He must’ve gone back to check other rooms in the hall. This was Dick’s chance. He just had to go. Put distance between himself the monster. Find his way back to Jason. He could do it. He had to do it.

When Dick finally stood up, pain shot up his leg. He’d forgotten about the nail injury because of his adrenaline spike. He’d have to walk carefully to avoid putting too much weight on his heel. One step at a time, he shuffled through the room full of sewing machines. It was a wonder, with all the options, why Slade had holed up in this wing.

“Oh! I understand now! You don’t want to leave me! After all, you’ve left me this wonderful little trail!”

Trail?

Dick looked down and realized that his heel was bleeding. He really was leading Slade right to him!

No more being careful. Dick sprinted through the room, holding his camera up only when the darkness was too overbearing to see through.

“Where are you going? Don’t run away from me! WHORE!”

The thought of being put back on Slade’s horrible idea of a surgical table drove him to move faster. He leapt over overturned desks and went from room to room until he came to an open window. It wasn’t the same one that Jason had left through, but it would have to do. He hoisted himself up and over the ledge—

—and fell a couple stories down.

Normally Nightwing was nimble. Falling from buildings was just another vigilante job hazard. He just had to cushion his landing by pulling quickly into a roll. But he’d thrown himself recklessly from the window and wound up landing on his injured foot wrong.

“Nghaaaaa!” Dick looked at his ankle in horror. It was swollen and bruised. Obviously broken. He couldn’t help but sob as he realized that now he had a horrible handicap in this hell hole. If Slade were to catch up with him. Oh god, he dreaded the thought. Worried about what he’d left behind, he glanced up and saw Slade looking out the window.

“You really want to leave me? Fine! Go! You and the rest of these ungrateful sluts!” He threw something, and it landed just a couple feet away from Dick.

Dick took a few deep breaths and checked the rest of his person for injuries. There were a few more bruises where he’d hit the ground, but his ankle seemed to have taken the worst of the fall. His camera had a slight crack in the screen but otherwise still seemed to work fine.

Next was to take stock of the area. There was a nasty fountain he’d just missed with his fall. Not a foot further out and he’d have been more likely to break his neck on it. Looking around it looked like he’d found a corner of Arkham Island that wasn’t part of some outdoor recreational nightmare. Unfortunately, he was surrounded by two buildings and a cliffside. Not the best choices. At least one of the buildings had an open door.

Dick sucked in a sniffle and leaned over to grab the folder Slade had thrown down at him. At the very least, he could seek out more information to explain what the hell was going on.

-

From: Mercy Graves  
To: group8416@lexcorp.us.com  
Subject: Alfred Pennyworth Phase-Out

Dear sirs,

The ground work has been laid to ensure an uneventful egress for one Alfred Pennyworth from structural and financial systems at Arkham Asylum. His advanced age should alleviate any suspicions among contractors and employees, (among whom he has cheerfully been nicknamed “The Crypt Keeper”) and legally speaking he died a year ago.

I understand that patients 14306-1, 14279-1, and 14868-1 have already been scheduled for transit. We’re all terribly excited at the obvious profit potential of the new project. My researchers have combed through Pennyworth’s files and found no mention of the three “lucid dreamers.” I think we can safely assume Pennyworth was sufficiently distracted by the partial success of patient Bruce Wayne, to be ignorant of the real discovery on hand.

Even minimal exploitation of these resources is hard to overestimate. I only hope the new facility is sufficiently shielded to allow female staff, so I can see what comes with my own eyes.

Respectfully,

Mercy Graves  
Lex Corp Legal Mitigation Department.

-

Dick wanted to scream. He read over the email over and over again, confirming for his own eyes just what he was seeing. According to the email…Alfred was alive? Not just that, but he was alive and had…somehow provided a service for Arkham? It sounded like something important too. Lucrative, at least, by Lex Corp standards.

And Bruce had been a patient? That was the worst news.

Bruce and Alfred were still alive.

But Bruce was a patient at Arkham.

None of it made any sense. Hell, Bruce’s whole “Knightfall Protocol” didn’t make any sense. Dick wanted to believe it was all lies.

Maybe he was still being affected by E-22. That had to be it. His mind was filling in blanks on a document…or something…

He tucked the document into the pocket of his jumpsuit and carefully got to his feet. To his chagrin, he could barely put any weight on his right foot without feeling immense pain. His limp was bad, but there was little he could do about it. He went into the building nearby and held up the camera to get a better look around. Per the usual, most things were gated off. However the gated elevator in the middle of the room was familiar. “Wait…”

Dick checked around to the right to find a short hall. The first locked gate had a sign above it which read “Male Ward.”

“Yes!” If Dick remembered right, the male ward was connected to the main entrance to Arkham Island. He was so close. He just had to find the key and he was sure he could find his way to the exit.

Of course, there was still the very real possibility that his way might be blocked at some point on the other side, but he had to believe he was close. He needed some sort of hope at this point or he was liable to lose his mind.

…or…possibly even lose something worse…

At the end of the short hall was a pair of double doors that led out to a large, dimly lit room. Dick tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. It seemed less like it was barricaded and more like it was locked.

There was a kitchen just a room over. Dick cut through there to find an open air vent. He struggled to get up into it and pointed his camera ahead to cut through the darkness only to startle himself. A man’s head had been run through a neighboring vent and was still sticking out in his path. There was enough blood around to indicate that he was already dead, but it was jarring just the same. He crawled around the corner towards the larger room and thought about just how numb he’d become during his time trapped in Arkham. He’d come across so many corpses…seen so many people just seconds before they died. There was nothing left that could surprise—

Dick stumbled out of the vent and gagged on the acrid smell of rotting flesh. There had been some places where the stench was strong—where Anton had microwaved a guy’s head, where Slade had set up a horrible recreation of childbirth—but they didn’t compare to this.

Dick got back to his feet and tried to grasp where he was. It seemed like a gymnasium. He clicked on the camera’s night vision again and nearly threw up at what was revealed. There were ropes everywhere—pinned to the ripped-up court with heavy-duty metal stakes—and hanging from the rafters above were countless mutilated bodies. Much of their innards and various pieces of their rotting bodies had fallen to the floor in bloody piles. Dick tried to steady his nerves by taking a deep breath, but that only put emphasis on the smell. So, he held the breath he sucked in and stumbled across the gym, nearly tripping over rope after rope on his way to the far doors. He hoped beyond hope that the key wasn’t on any of the bodies around the gym. The last thing he wanted to do was fish through guts without knowing what he might find.

To Dick’s horror, not two steps into the far hall, he heard a familiar tune being sang nearby.

“When I at last had found my love, I asked my songbird, ‘what lies ahead?’ Will we kill Batman day after day? Here’s what my songbird said…”

It wasn’t hard to spot a number of lockers where he could try to hide, but after his last run in with Slade, Dick hardly thought trapping himself in a small space would play out well a second time. As far as he could tell, moving forward was his best choice.

“‘Que sera, sera. Whatever will be will be…’”

Dick kept limping, using his camera for light until he came upon a well-lit room lined with two groupings of chairs on either side of a red carpeted walkway. At the far end was a slightly raised stage where a mannequin dressed in a hideously red, green, and yellow wedding dress was holding a single key. Dick could guess at who had set the place up.

Still, there was nothing to be done but to grab the key and make a break for it. Unfortunately, after taking a step onto the walkway, Dick flinched upon seeing his own shadow cast upon the wall ahead of him. “Fucking everything’s making me jumpy,” he mumbled as he kept stumbling along.

Just as he reached out towards the key, however, another shadow overlapped his.

“There you are, darling!”

Dick grabbed the key and pivoted, stumbling to his left and circling around the chairs. Thankfully there was a narrow opening to the far side. He managed to squeeze himself through, confident that Slade was a bit too broad-chested to pull of the same feat. It may have only bought him a few moments, but it was a start.

There was a metal grate blocking the only door out, so Dick had to take the time to push it out of the way before getting through. On the other side he caught Slade’s shadow nearby and ducked down in hopes that he wouldn’t be spotted. Creeping around was difficult with an injured ankle, but Dick managed to make it back to the gym unspotted. Choosing not to press his luck, he kept a slow and steady pace, getting across the sea of decay and ropes until he finally reached the air vent again.

Dick thought he could hear Slade somewhere behind him, but apparently he’d put enough distance between them that he made it back into the kitchen without incident. He kept moving, though he listened carefully, waiting to hear his pursuer and happy to hear nothing but silence greeting him.

There was no denying the sense of guilt in his gut over leaving Jason behind, but with his ankle the way that it was, he was more likely to fall victim to whatever drugged-out psychopath he came across next.

He pressed the key into the lock and turned it and—

CRACK!

Dick’s vision blurred as his head was forced against the gate.

“No more running, Pretty Bird,” Slade whispered against Dick’s ear. “If you won’t be mine, I’ll make sure you belong to no one.”

Dick threw an elbow, hoping to get better leverage to remove his attacker, but Slade took it without flinching and went on to slam Dick’s head against the gate again. Spots swam through his vision…or maybe it was the Rorschach pattern again? He could hear laughter, but he was relatively certain that was just Slade relishing in his suffering.

All he knew was that it hurt. It hurt, and he felt…weak…

“Time to string you up, Pretty Bird. That’s what you get for being a whore.”

Slade dragged Dick’s limp form through the now-opened double doors. He didn’t feel like he could struggle if he tried. When a rough rope looped around his neck, he thought or a second that it would be okay. If this was how it had to end, that would be okay. At least he’d be dead and free from whatever further horrors Slade had in mind for his body.

But when the rope dug into his neck and cut off his oxygen, his body went into an instinctual state of panic. He sucked in air, but it felt like he was pulling fire into his lungs. Blood flow was cut off from his brain and, within minutes, he knew he’d be dead if he didn’t get free.

While thrashing, Dick’s leg caught on a nearby rope and he managed to yank one of the stakes free from the floor. Slade groaned as it slammed into his calf. He released the rope he was pulling in favor of applying pressure to his leg, and Dick dropped like a sack of rocks. A wave of pain overwhelmed him as he landed on his bad foot again, but it helped to wake him up. He was still in imminent danger. He tried to loosen the noose around his neck, but Slade realized what had happened and grabbed the other end of the rope again, pulling on it so hard that Dick was hoisted right off the ground, albeit this time with a hand caught in the noose. He did his best to alleviate some of his weight, but it still wasn’t much better.

“I’m…sorry it has to be like this…Pretty Bird,” Slade said through gritted teeth as he struggled to get the end of the rope knotted and staked to the floor. “Stop struggling! At least…this way you’ll be…beautiful…”

Dick kicked out and once again found another taut rope. Hopeful that it might injure Slade like the last, he tried to swing himself towards it to get his leg around it.

Spots returned to his vision. He didn’t have much time. If he didn’t find some way to get Slade to let him down, this was it.

Thinking back, this was never how he thought it would happen. Even after all the horrors, he still wanted to make it back to Gotham.

No...to Bludhaven. If he made it out of this, screw Gotham. He’d go back to Bludhaven and never look back.

He wanted to return to his shitty apartment and curl up on his bed. He wanted to call up Barbara and thank her for everything she did to help him keep his sanity after Bruce and Alfred…well…after Knightfall. He wanted to call Tim up and apologize for not reaching out sooner.

He even wanted to see Jason again, if only to apologize for everything.

By some miracle, Dick swung far enough to catch the nearby rope with his good ankle, and upon swinging back, yet another stake ripped free below, and soon Dick was flat on the floor, choking and wheezing as he managed to get the noose up and over his head.

Why hadn’t Slade done anything? Dick was sure he’d gotten free only to get his hopes up a second time.

“Ngh.”

Something wet fell on the back of Dick’s neck. He touched his right hand to it to check and shuddered upon seeing it covered in blood. He turned himself over and found Slade, strung up over him. The rope Dick had managed to get loose had ripped up thin chunk of wood from the flooring that had plunged right through Slade’s chest. The corpse attached at the other end proceeded to act as a bob, pulling Slade up towards the other corpses in the rafters where he tangled himself with the other ropes, setting off a chain reaction of falling body parts nearby.

Blood continued to trickle down along the wooden spike in Slade’s chest as he shifted from above, reaching his free arm down towards Dick.

“S…Song…bird…”

Even in his final moments, Slade was still preoccupied with thoughts of Jason.

“We…could have been…beautiful…”

Dick stared up at Slade, unblinkingly, waiting for all signs of life to cease. Only when Slade remained completely motionless for a few minutes did Dick allow himself to lay flat on the floor.

Slade Wilson.

Deathstroke.

Bruce had acknowledged that his prowess was almost unmatchable. He acknowledged that the man was an opponent who demanded respect. There were even a few encounters during Dick’s Robin days where he found himself…dangerously infatuated with the old man. He’d never admit that, of course. Then Jason had come to rely on Slade after emerging from this hell.

Slade was an admirable man and a worthy opponent. He deserved respect.

But upon staring up at his bleeding corpse—still dressed in a makeshift tuxedo—Dick could feel nothing but relief. He recognized that…this was the first time he'd ever killed anyone. It wasn’t on purpose, he tried to tell himself, but the fact remained: something he did had caused this man’s immediate death.

And he felt no remorse.

Instead, Dick closed his eyes and caught his breath. He no longer cared about the stench of death that surrounded him. He wasn’t even bothered by the slow dripping of blood onto his chest from above. He was exhausted. He just needed a moment to stop. If someone chose to attack him then and there, he figured that he probably deserved it.

Just for now, he allowed himself to drift off.


	9. Rise of the Savior - Jason Todd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After saving Dick, Jason pursues Deacon Blackfire like a bat out of hell, determined to do...  
...well, he's not sure what. He wants the man dead, but he wants information. The best way to handle it is to catch the man and get the answers he wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O MY GAWD.
> 
> I went off on a venture to bring some light during this pandemic and I've been successful in that venture and it's helped me to challenge myself, but it hasn't been too helpful with my other works. Not that I haven't been trying. That's why I've been keeping them short: so I can take the time to look at what I'm working on...
> 
> And well, today I wasn't thinking much in the fun mindset...Nope, today was all angst. So I sat down and thought back to my extensive Outlast notes before sending caution to the wind. My biggest holdup with this story as of late hasn't been finishing it, it's been CUTTING IT DOWN! There are now good chunks of the game that I've skipped over, but it's just not feasible at this point. I was struggling with choosing what should stay and what could go and every time I looked at my notes I'd run myself in circles and give up.
> 
> Turns out, not looking at my notes was the answer. Freed up the pressure a little. Plus I was still craving the angst. I'll apologize to people enjoying my short-fics later.
> 
> Anywho, here's the latest installment! The next chapter will also be a Jason chapter, but it's already mostly written and I'm excited to finish this so my goal is to get it up soon! Thank you for your patience and or thank you for reading at all!

“Jay, stop!”

Jason punched Slade one last time and the Joker laughed at his side. [Aww c’mon. Give him another! You haven’t heard from the jerk since you chose to trust Batsy and THIS is how you reunite? Go on, hit him again!]

“Jay, it’s okay. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Jason couldn’t help the smirk. “Slade? Hurt me?” The thought was absurd. If it hadn’t been for Slade, he’d have died back when Bruce first trashed Arkham. Slade was the only one there to help him find his sanity. It was more infuriating to find that Slade had succumbed to whatever seemed to be going around in this hell hole.

“Jay…” Jason’s head spun as if on a swivel, looking right at Dick. The sudden silence was unnerving. Where had the laughter from a moment ago gone? “You’ve been drugged.”

Jason couldn’t help but smirk. Dick couldn’t possibly think he was this twitchy normally…could he?

“We have to get out of here.” Dick loomed over Jason in more ways than one and bile rose in the back of his throat at the full-frontal view. He was sick and tired of seeing dicks in Arkham.

It was all Jason could do to lean away from Dick’s outstretched hand and fight back the strong desire to dry-heave. “Not on your life, Dickwad,” he barked, sounding a bit more threatening than was necessary. He knew Dick was only trying to help, but if he knew what Jason had been through… “You and I are NOT close enough for this.” To make sure Dick didn’t keep trying, Jason got to his feet without any assistance (though he stumbled a bit). His head was feeling pretty light. He probably needed to get that checked out sooner than later.

After finally covering himself, Dick snatched up a camcorder and Jason understood that it was his own means of seeing through the darkness. “He’s been trying to recreate you,” he said, nodding towards the lump on the floor that was Slade. “Fuck, he thought he could use me to recreate you.”

Noting the table saw, Jason was a bit exasperated by the implication. “That’s an interesting way to go about it.” And it brought up one other important question. “Why the fuck were you naked?”

For some reason Dick looked sheepish about the issue now rather than when he actually was letting it all hang out. “I…He’s not in his right mind.”

[Must be in the water,] the Joker said with a snicker while poking at Slade’s bloody face.

“He’s been trying to recreate you by training people or by…I mean…”

[Yeesh! Spit it out, old boy! Did Batsy ever consider speech therapy? I mean usually this guy never shuts up, but now he gets all Bill Denbrough on us. Haha!]

“He said…I think…he was trying to make a baby.”

[WAHA!?]

Jason shuddered. There had been people during his years of torment who enjoyed that sort of threat. As if they hadn’t already taken everything from him, some of the evil fucks would tell him how good he’d look with a swollen belly, like he was carrying their baby.

[I always knew Deathstroke was one of us!]

“He wasn’t like that,” Jason defended. Slade had taken him out of that hell. He’d saved him. If it hadn’t been for Slade—

[Old freak probably just wanted a turn with you.]

“Shut up. Shut up! He was NEVER like you!”

“Jay?” 

Fuck. Jason had gotten so used to being on his own there (aside from the Joker hallucination that just wouldn’t leave him alone). The last thing he needed was for Dick to question his sanity. “I…I was just…” No. He didn’t owe Dick any explanation. Frankly, it was Dick’s fault he was back there at all. “You have to get out of here.” That felt right. Dick’s presence there, it couldn’t be helping anything. Maybe he’d uncovered the shit-show that Arkham had become in recent times, but it wasn’t anything new. They’d have been better off if Dick just stayed out of it. They could have let the monsters kill each other and remained none the wiser. “You should have never come here, dumbass.”

“I shouldn’t…” The stupid look on Dick’s face pissed Jason off. “Jay, are you serious?”

[Woof. It’s like he doesn’t know you at all! My Lil’ J doesn’t know how to loosen up!]

“You’re not cut out for this kind of thing.” That was an understatement. “You’re the boy wonder, after all.” In hindsight, it was a little funny. Who was Dick Grayson to handle any of this? Robin? Nightwing? Everyone knew he was just Batman’s understudy. Since Bruce’s death he hadn’t stepped up. He hadn’t changed. He hadn’t proven anything.

“I know you don’t have a high opinion of me, but there was something going on here and I was just trying to—”

“Trying to what, get your ass locked up with the rest of the psychos? Trying to prove that you’re as good a detective a Bruce? Heh.” Dick was never going to be Bruce. He was never going to be Batman. Batman could have handled this. Batman would have known what to do…right?

[Batsy didn’t know squat! He thought having child soldiers was a good idea! Ha! Fantastic how that worked out for me, but not so great for you boys, huh?]

Jason covered his mouth, trying hard not to laugh at how stupid their situation was. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but you and Bruce have never been good about figuring out the secrets going on in Arkham,” he added to really drive his point home.

Dick had the audacity to look hurt. “That’s not fair.

Jason may as well have been echoing his hallucination. “D’awww. Sorry to break it to you, daddy’s boy, but life’s not fair.” He couldn’t keep looking at Dick. Not after that. He was slipping. The Joker was getting what he wanted.

Slade…he acknowledged the voices that sometimes swam around in Jason’s head. He told Jason to embrace them. To own them rather than let them have power over him. Looking at the old man now, laid out and bloody after a simple scrap like that. It was nostalgic. “Honestly thought you’d fair better, but I guess there’s no escaping the madness of this place. Right, old man?” He knelt by his old mentor, recalling the code phrase they used to use to confirm who it was under their masks. “Don’t worry. I didn’t come here to die. You and I both know: I’m going to live forever.”

“Jason, we need to get out of here,” Dick interjected. Of course, he wasn’t wrong, but he just didn’t understand. He went on muttering about getting help but Jason couldn’t hear over the Joker.

[Oh, sure, you COULD leave. But what would that fix? You’ve found evidence of that old butler having been involved with something here. You know there’s more going on. And not to mention, you owe a few guys a good beating. Not to mention the old Deacon’s weird thing about the ‘Gospel of the Bat’. Wonder where he got the idea for that. Am I right, Lil’ J?]

“No!” Jason straightened up and looked down the hall. He’d spent more time in this one place than he had willingly anywhere else in the asylum. He was feeling antsy. “I…there’s something I…”

What was he supposed to tell Dick? That he didn’t want to leave until he was satisfied? That he’d only killed Pyg so far and he felt obligated to spill some more blood? That some pathetic part of him hoped that there was some trace of Bruce there? Dick wouldn’t understand. No one would understand.

[That’s because there’s no one quite like you, Lil’ J!]

“Jay, we just need to clear our heads. This place is getting to—”

“I’m just fucking fine! Nothing I haven’t been through before. I just need…”

[That’s right! Tell him how you’ve been tortured! Tell him about the crowbar! Ooh, and the hours of waterboarding!]

“Shut up…I need…” Why? Why didn’t he WANT to leave? It didn’t make sense anymore.

“Jay, just…slow down for a second.” Dick looked at Jason with such anguish. Such pity. He never wanted to be subject to that man’s pity. “We can figure something out.”

{Let me help you, son.}

[Ah! Get out of here, Batsy! This space is taken!]

Jason nodded. He had to stop letting the Joker talk him into things. Dick may have dragged him into this, but he was also doing his best to get them out. Maybe Jason needed to cut him some slack. Would it really be so bad to accept help from the first Robin?

TAP!

Jason turned to look down the hall again and felt burning rage upon seeing the Deacon scribbling out a bloody message on the far wall and all his consideration was forgotten.

“You! I’ve been looking for you!”

The wannabe-priest faced Jason and had the audacity to actually smile. “Yes. Good. Our savior still stands! I’ve seen to it, my Lord!”

“Savior, huh?”

[Ooh. Yes. Yes! That’s right! You’re Arkham’s knight in shining armor!]

Jason couldn’t help the smile that split his face. This man was uninformed. It was time to teach him properly. “I’ll show you no mercy, you fucking rat!” He took off after the man, who actually seemed eager for the pursuit.

[Whoo! What a rush! What say you to throwing him down the elevator shaft? Or maybe you should bring him back there to test out that lovely table saw!]

Tempting suggestions aside, he had every intention of getting back at the asshole for what he’d done. But first he had to catch up. And the guy turned abruptly, so Jason was eager to follow only to realize a second too late that the man had launched himself out of a window.

[No chickening out! C’mon, J-Boy!]

Well, he wasn’t about to stop now. He leapt out of the window, careful to roll out of his landing in order to avoid injury. He heard a metal fence rattle and took his flip phone out to illuminate the area only to grunt. A thick fog had rolled in and his light couldn’t pierce it, so there was no point in wasting the battery. As he tucked it away, he heard a rustling nearby.

[I’m going to guess that’s not a cat.]

If someone had the nerve to try to sneak up on him out there, he couldn’t be held responsible for what happened to them. He was done pulling punches after Pyg.

After searching through the fog, Jason found a fence that ran along the cliffside of Arkham Island and a shed that let out on the far side towards the chapel. Considering who he was after, it was clear that was where he needed to go. Problem was the door was locked.

Finding the key to the shed was more of a chore than a challenge. The odd inmate muttering nonsense and throwing themselves from the fences to an endless plummet were more of a mild nuisance than they were a problem. Of course, the Joker’s constant narrating didn’t make matters easier.

[Think he was aiming for something? Five points if you make it past the cliffside and hit the water, twenty if you crack your skull on the way down!]

Thus far, Jason had counted out eighty-five points.

Once he had the key, however, he finally had a means of moving forward. The shed let out to another part of the island. It was one step closer to the chapel. One step closer to Deacon Blackfire and answers.

[So, what’re we going to do with the heretic when we catch up?] the Joker asked, leaning against the side of the shed while Jason fumbled around with the key. [I vote we crucify him, only we give him a cape to he can look batty! Teach him to misuse Batsy’s teachings!]

Jason hated that the thought was tempting. But what WAS his plan? He should have stayed with Grayson. Should have helped the poor idiot get out of there. Was there really much chance that he’d make it on his own? He looked pretty beat up. And Jason couldn’t bring himself to KILL Slade…the man still meant a lot to him, even if their time together had passed.

[What, were you in love with the guy or something?] Of course, Joker had to get right in Jason’s face to ask that stupid question. [Which begs the question, is there some homosexual thing between Robins and Batman? I’ve always wondered. Harley mentioned some Freudian something or other a few times and, as much as I enjoy ignoring her, it always picked at my brain.]

“You’re a sick fuck. He was Dick’s foster parent.”

[And your benefactor. C’mon. Tell me there wasn’t some homoeroticism hidden in there somewhere!] He made suggestive hand gestures

Jason sighed, recognizing that he was arguing with his hallucination again. He got the door to the shed open and was disappointed to find that any tools he might use to fend off inmates less inclined to jump to their deaths were nowhere to be seen. 

[Do you hear something?]

Being asked that by his hallucination was embarrassing.

“I really must be losing my—”

Before he could even finish his thought, an emaciated version of the Batman rushed him; its cowl pulled down so that a band of spikes covered the place where his eyes should have been. Pale, spindly fingers reached for Jason’s neck as elongated teeth protruded from an impossible smile. Jason had seen something like this before in the worst of his nightmares, created by the same drug he’d paid Scarecrow to expose all of Gotham to. This was some horrible hybrid of his two greatest fears: Batman and the Joker.

Jason was knocked back off his feet as he failed to scramble away from the ghastly amalgamation of his two mentors—the one who’d destroyed him and the one who’d failed to save him—and felt an awful chill as the thing passed through him like nothing more than a specter.

[Wow. Now that was a good looking fellow.] Joker leaned over Jason so that they were looking at each other’s faces upside down. [Were you exposed to Scarecrow’s stuff recently? I mean, I’m a figment of your imagination and even I’M not sure if that was real. Haha!]

Jason shuddered and picked himself back up. He could still hear the ghost’s distant laughter. What kind of fresh hell had he found this time? Arkham as it was with the fear toxin could prove extremely dangerous.

[The One Who Laughs, huh? Now there’s an idea. Here I was just thinking that was these idiots’ tribute to moi. I mean, I SHOULD be worshipped as a god, that’s for sure.]

Upon recovering from the shock, he went through the shed and was relieved that there was at least a ladder when the other side was otherwise nothing but cliffside. He scaled the ladder and found a single inmate sitting on the ledge, holding his fingers as if he was smoking even though no cigarette rested between them. The walkway only went towards the guy, so Jason braved it. Upon getting closer, he realized that he recognized the man; he was the spitting image of Bruce, save for the lines where his face had been altered. Eerily enough, the skin sagged away from his face thanks to the state of decay that everyone was in. It was like looking at a zombie version of Bruce Wayne.

“Tommy.”

Thomas Elliot glanced up at Jason, showing just how the flesh of his face had begun to rot. “Ah. You would be here.”

Thomas Elliot was a rare face here that didn’t upset Jason. The man wasn’t an Arkham inmate during Jason's time in the basement. He’d come across Thomas after escaping with Slade. He was a kindred spirit, though it wasn’t hard to recognize the insanity brewing in the man, even when they first met.

“Never fixed your face, huh?”

Thomas scoffed and moved as if to stub out his imaginary cigarette. “I fixed my face when I took on Bruce’s. This damned place just hasn’t let me upkeep it.”

That was an understatement. “Look…about what happened with Bruce—”

“There was nothing you could have done,” Thomas mumbled. “I made my choices and I stood by them. You never struck me as the kind of guy who could kill Bruce Wayne anyways. And leave it to the conniving bastard to fake his own death to make sure no one could get that satisfaction.”

“You think he faked it then?” Jason noted.

[Don’t you?]

“Don’t you?”

Honestly, Jason wished more than anything that it wasn’t fake. Bruce had promised to help him. They were going to work on things. Maybe, just maybe, he could have learned to move past the horrors he’d faced in Arkham. But then, after he went as far as to save the replacement Robin, Bruce went off and got blown up…

…at his own mansion…

…with Alfred as collateral…

“I don’t know what to think, but he’s dead to me,” Jason decided.

“That’s right…Bruce is dead to the world…so I should be too.”

“What?”

Jason didn’t even have the time to process. Thomas slid right off the ledge effortlessly.

[Ooh. Heheh. Twenty points to Hush! He probably should have pushed out further.]

Jason felt disgusted, and yet undeniably sympathetic. Bruce was the center of Thomas’ world. Jason would never admit it, but Bruce had been the biggest point of impact on his own life as well. 

“God, I’d kill for a cigarette,” Jason said with a sigh. He continued along the walkway, using the silhouette of a cross in the distance as a beacon. His only motivation at this point was to find Deacon Blackfire and break the man’s neck himself.

When he ran out of footpath, Jason pulled himself onto the slanted rooftop. Every step was arduous; the rain threatening to wash him away with the rest of the grime, threatening to put an end to his already shitty evening. He barely managed to maneuver as close to the chapel as the rooftops he could cross allowed. Then it was just a matter of getting over the fence that was about eight feet out from the edge of the rooftop. Normally a jump like that would mean nothing to him. But, given the circumstances, he had no room for a head-start, no promise of a safe landing, and no guarantee that he’d even make it over at all.

[Hey, look on the bright side: you’re not jumping towards the cliff. You’re only good for five points this way.]

Jason couldn’t help but smirk at that. He prepared himself for the jump, took a couple of deep breaths, and launched himself, just barely clearing the fence—

—or so he thought.

The toe of his boot caught on the edge of the fence, pulling him back and dropping him head first. His only relief was that that he landed in water. Of course, it wasn’t hard to recognize the putrid taste as a mix of blood and probably something worse. He broke the surface only to hear the horrifying roar of Bane nearby and water sloshing.

[Run run run, as fast as you can…]

There wasn’t much point to running in the water. Every motion sent out ripples and made too much noise. Surely even the giant would catch onto that easily.

He fished out his phone and tried to dry it off as well as he could before flipping it open. Somehow that old thing was still working. Why did they ever change over to smart phones? He could look at one of those wrong and it would break.

The moment the light clicked on, the glow of Bane’s eyes up ahead became visible.

“Oh shit!”

Jason flashed the phone around the area quickly until he spotted a ladder. Where it led didn’t matter at this point as long as it meant getting away from the guy who’d crush his skull like an egg.

[So much for not running.]

Jason was all but swimming for the ladder. He could hear Bane splashing about angrily behind him and couldn’t afford to look back. He found the first rung of the ladder and hoisted his full body weight, recalling just how messed up his hands were as a wave of pain overcame them. He was almost at the top when he felt Bane’s enormous hand wrap around his left ankle.

There was no contest of strength. The monster of a man ripped Jason right off the ladder and dunked him in the water. His ankle was released in favor of both hands going straight to his neck. Jason kicked his legs out and nailed Bane right in the family jewels. It was just the hit he needed. The guy released him, and he wasted no time getting out of the rancid water and back up the ladder.

As if a sign from some higher power, the front door to the chapel stood just a few yards ahead. He sprinted for the door, throwing it open and shutting it behind him fast. There was a piano nearby that he knocked onto its side and pushed in front of the doorway. There was a loud thud, but Bane wasn't insistent on forcing his way in.

[Well, that could have gone better.] Joker was leaning against the piano, looking smug. [Would have been much more stylish if you dropped a piano on him.]

“Yeah, well, I die and you’re gone too. So, stop complaining.”

[Now you’re getting it! I’m on your side, kiddo!]

“Whatever. Let’s go find that self-appointed preacher and make him talk.”

Having a chapel on Arkham Island was an absolute joke. God may be all-seeing, but he turned a blind eye to the horrors that had become second nature to Jason. Now, with all the inmates running around—killing themselves, killing each other, desecrating everything they could get their filthy hands on—there was no salvation to be had.

And yet that filthy old coot was going around telling everyone to follow the 'One Who Laughs' and preaching the 'Gospel of the Bat' like Batman was anything more than a do-gooder vigilante gone a little too gothic. Jason told himself again that the only reason he was so determined to find Deacon Blackfire was to put him in his place.

[Oh no, it’s not like you’re hoping big Daddy Bats is somewhere in this holy tower, waiting for you to find him and save him from this hell!]

If he could punch his hallucination, he swore he would.

And so what if he felt just a little curious? It wasn’t like Blackfire had made up all this Bat-nonsense on his own. Was it so impossible to think that maybe someone was telling him what to believe?

[Yes.]

“I think I liked you better when you were torturing me,” Jason mumbled as he continued to search the disturbed chapel. Most of the inmates around the place were too self-involved to bother with him, though they occasionally whispered things and gave him looks that made him nervous. They didn’t seem to be armed and there was not way they were even half as dangerous as Hammer and Sickle, Bane, or Killer Croc and King Shark.

[What I wouldn’t give to see ol’ Nigma trying to be scary like those guys. Haha! Can you just picture it? I’ll bet he still couldn’t get past that riddling hang-up of his.]

Jason smirked. He’d have much preferred to fight off the Riddler over Pyg. Nygma would have more to worry about than just a bruised ego if he tried to cut off some fingers.

[There’s that smile. I’m sure everyone tells you this, but you’re much cuter when you smile.]

“Sick fuck.” At that his hallucination left him alone for just a little bit. After dealing with some questionable stairwells he came across a room that was almost entirely collapsed into the floor below. There were a few beams still holding up what they could, but it was going to take some effort to get across to the next stairwell.

One step out onto the first beam made that overly apparent.

There was a strained creak as he put just a little weight on the wood. It wasn’t likely that it could handle his full weight…so what were the odds that the next beam would be any better?

“I fucking hate this place.” Jason pushed off the first beam and it broke under his foot as he launched himself to the next. He kicked off of it the moment his boot came into contact, but it broke too easily and he failed to get much momentum and wound up slamming chest-first into the flooring at the opposite end of the room from where he started. He struggled to pull himself up only to slip as the floor threatened to collapse under his weight. He scraped with his nails, desperate to make it up, but the floor bowed like moldy wood and dumped him down into the darkness of the room below.

“Damnit.”

[It’s dark down here. Are you sure this is a NEW addition to the island? I mean, I certainly don’t remember being invited to any services, but this place seems just as withered as the inmates.]

Jason ignored the Joker in favor of finding his old phone to shed some light on his current situation. Apparently he’d landed on it when he fell. The screen was cracked and it had some trouble turning back on. “Come on. Don’t fail me now. I thought you were supposed to withstand everything.”

As if responding to his comment, the phone came back to life, lighting up the immediate area…

…and the small mob of inmates who had elected to band together to deal with him rather than face him alone.

“Well shit.”

Jason spun on his heels and tripped over a toppled beam. Hands clawed at his leg, pulling him back. He kicked back with his free leg and felt it connect solidly with someone’s jaw. He scrambled away and flashed his phone around, desperate for some means of getting back up to the higher floor. The best he could find was a torn curtain from above that just might be hanging low enough for him to grab the bottom of it.

[I always did wonder if Robins could fly.]

“Time to fucking prove it.” He bent his knees and jumped with all of his might, nabbing the bottom of the curtain. As he tried to pull himself up with it, however, the tears that were already there came apart further. “No no no no no!”

A large arm stuck out from over the remaining floor above and Jason didn’t hesitate to grab the hand at the end. His brain registered just a little too slowly what he’d done. He was pulled away from the mob, sure, but by whom?

As he was hauled up onto a more solid part of the floor, his heart raced. Hammer smiled at him, holding him like a captured animal while Sickle stood nearby.

“He has been hurt.”

“The Pyg doesn’t know how to share.”

“Can I have his tongue, brother?”

“No. He is where he belongs. We cannot harm him.”

“I don’t like the rules.”

Hammer hauled Jason into the nearby stairwell and let him down with an annoyed frown. “Go on then. If you’re supposed to be so special, go see the Deacon.”

“Praise be to the One Who Laughs.”

[Hallelujah! Hehe. Thought you were fun-food with that one. What luck, right?]

“I’ve half a mind to kick them to the vultures,” Jason mumbled as he held up his phone again to shed some light on the stairwell. Not wanting to risk a fight, he proceeded up until he reached a hall that looked significantly nicer than the rest of the chapel below, lined with lit candelabras. Ahead he could hear chanting, as if people had actually gathered in prayer. A place like this didn’t belong in Arkham.

Jason reached the main room of worship and was hit by the stench of gasoline. He covered his nose and mouth but trudged onward, awestruck by what lay before his eyes.

At the center of the room—amidst the ranks of praying inmates—stood a wooden cross with Deacon Blackfire nailed to it. Even more disturbing was the makeshift Batman cowl that had been draped over his head; its wings spread out to each side and nailed in place with his hands.

[Whoa. I mean, you’ve got to admit, I called that one.]

“A-at last,” Blackfire said weakly. “Our savior has come.”

“You stupid fuck,” Jason spat. “You had me running around, following your bullshit, so that I could be there to light your sorry ass on fire?”

“I shall…ascend…You have heard my message. My task is…complete…”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! All you’ve done is drug me, fuck with my head, and lead me through a stupid maze!”

[Don’t forget he brought about our little reunion, kiddo.]

“Oh, I haven’t fucking forgotten!” Jason was all but foaming at the mouth.

“Only you are worthy. Y-you will rise. You are the second coming of He Who Laughs! Show them no mercy as you shall show me none! Raze all of Arkham with your righteous fury!”

“Fuck you.” Jason turned to leave, unwilling to partake any further in Blackfire’s schemes.

“N-no! Wait! Th-the prophecy! Please!”

“I’m done being your puppet! I’ve lost too much to this hell-hole already! I…I should have left with…”

“But he lives! The Bat lives below, trapped by our God!”

Jason froze and ground his teeth as if that would help to relieve some of the pressure on his skull. “You’re a crazy man…in an insane asylum…”

[Hey, he’s not the one who’s been talking to a figment of their imagination.]

“As you must free me, so too shall you free him!”

[Wouldn’t it be something if Batsy really was here?]

Jason looked back at Blackfire, a burning hatred rising in his gut. This man was dangling a dream in front of him. One he had thought he’d long since given up on. Bruce…alive. Alive to help him like he’d promised…or…maybe…

[Maybe it’s finally your turn to make him suffer.]

“Please. Take the key. Find the Bat. But first, release me from this hell so that I might become immortal!”

Jason finally noticed the employee lanyard at the foot of the cross. He knelt to retrieve it and felt his heart stop upon seeing who it belonged to.

“You wanna die so badly? Fine.” Jason tucked the lanyard away and toppled the closest candelabra. The gasoline picked up the flame quickly and in no time Deacon Blackfire was reduced to a burning, screaming bat symbol on a cross. The inmates who had gathered didn’t cower from the flames. Instead they continued their satanic hymns and watched their leader with reverence. Jason took his leave of that nightmare and found the twins standing at the doorway. They only lowered their heads upon seeing him, letting him pass by. He looked down the hall, past the room and opposite from the stairwell where he’d first emerged and felt a little choked up upon seeing the unlit EXIT sign.

Dare he even begin to hope?

He went to the door and, like the world was telling him it was finally over, the door opened without much pressure and let out to a metal fire escape that actually reached the ground. He may as well have taken it two steps at a time, he was so relieved.

That first step on the ground was everything. The main entrance was in sight. There was a gaping hole in the fence that would let him through. He could already see the cab he’d jacked to get there. It was over. It was finally over. Grayson be damned. He would do it. He could walk away from all of this. Blow up the bridge. Never look back.

[Really? Just like that? Don’t even want to see what the whack-job was talking about? Don’t even want to look into that crazy ghost-thing that looked like Batsy’s and my love-child? I mean, not that you should be jealous. You’ll always be our baby bird.]

Jason just had to keep walking towards the cab…

[You really don’t want to know why HE’S here? Can’t stand to see how HE played into all of this, huh? I can understand that. I mean, I wouldn’t even REMOTELY think the religious freak was telling the truth if it weren’t for THAT!]

“Fuck.”

Jason slipped through the hole in the fence and ran back to the main building. He pried the boards on the double doors off, ignoring the way the blood from his hands slicked the wood and made it more difficult. The pain was nothing at this point. Festering wounds, infected burns…it was all second nature to him now.

When he pulled on the last board it splintered in the middle and the door fell open as an all-too familiar man stumbled out at him.

There wasn’t a second’s hesitation.

Jason angled the plank like a stake and jammed it into Lex Luthor’s shoulder. The prestigious man wailed as Jason shoved him back into the building. Luthor fell and tried to cower away from Jason, but he had no mercy to show the mastermind behind whatever hellish drug the man must have had made and the people he destroyed in the process.

“Pl-please! Have muh-muh-muh-mercy!”

Jason stomped down on Luthor's knee, delighting in the crunch of bones under his boot and the symphony of screams from a man who would normally never allow anyone to see him even sweat.

“I’m ending this,” Jason growled, taking the lanyard from his pocket and dangling it in front of Luthor’s face. “Whatever it is you did…whatever HE did…it ends today.”

“He made me do it! You don’t understand! Aaaaugh!”

Jason ground his heel down. “I’m tired of being told what I do and don’t know. I know plenty. I know you fucked up.”

“I saved everyone!”

“Believe what you want. Nobody’s ever been saved in Arkham.” Jason stepped off of Luthor's leg and left him to suffer at the doorway knowing he too had been that close to getting out of there.

[Ooh, I always wanted a little showdown with the Bald-Blunder! It’s such a shame he took up residence in Metropolis. So many missed opportunities.]

Jason walked by the main desks and found his castaway helmet. He hadn’t really looked at it before. The front was cracked; split right down the middle. Just like him. The boy who looked up to Batman. The man who was reborn at the hands of the Joker.

[It was a good look for you. Don’t get me wrong, I wore it better. Tell you what; for your next outfit we’ll get you a purple suit with bat wings in the sleeves!]

Jason sighed and started towards the elevator. He stepped into the rickety thing and stared at the blood stains ahead of him. Someone had removed Pyg. He’d be more worried if he actually cared anymore.

There was a slot at the bottom of the buttons panel for a small key. He hadn’t thought much of it before—the style of the elevator was so unusually archaic that the only key he thought mattered was the one he took off of Pyg—but the lanyard had a small key on it that would fit perfectly, and Blackfire had said that he’d find what he was looking for below.

He pressed the key in and the elevator began to lower. Removing the key didn’t stop it, so he pulled it out and looked at the personnel tag again just to confirm it.

There was no denying it. The picture showed an old man whom Jason felt closer to than he ever did with Bruce, and the name was right there.

-

Employee ID: Alfred Pennyworth  
Position: Head of Project Laughter


	10. The Bloody Crescendo - Jason Todd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason finally learns the truth behind the Batman Who Laughs and Compound E-22 and is tasked with putting an end to the horrors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is one I've been excited to write and post for a while! This was the big reveal! The torture at its finest and most messed up (at least for Jason. Dick getting attacked by a Slade who wanted to make babies was admittedly a little...yeah).
> 
> Gonna do my best to get the final chapter out soon too! Excited to have this finished up! I've mentioned in a previous chapter, there have been some things that I've noticed that I might like to adjust over time, but my first goal is to finish this. Thank you for sticking around or reading this at all!

The elevator let out to an underground area that didn’t look anything like the rest of Arkham. The walls were simply stone; like a cave had been repurposed. The ceiling was lined with fluorescent lights. There was a chill that ran through Jason. This basement location was kept pretty cold compared to the rest of Arkham as well. It was the perfect environment for experimentation.

[Well, what are you waiting for? Go on. What’s the worst that could be down here?] Joker skipped around, not a care in the world. How Jason's hallucination could be so excited about the situation was beyond him. His every limb felt heavy now. He was wracked with fear. He didn’t want to learn that Alfred was somehow behind this. But he couldn’t just go back to the way things were without answers.

Unlike the rest of Arkham, the basement was quiet. There were no signs of life. In fact, there were some rather impossible scenes of gore; people shredded and left as a mess of dripping organs on the ceiling, people crammed together into a massive pile of death. Whatever had killed them couldn't be human. Not a shuffle of feet or a whisper could be heard otherwise.

At one point Jason came across a server room that had an overturned laptop and a few drops of blood. It wasn’t a murder scene, but something had happened there. An act of violence between non-inmates perhaps? He couldn’t imagine that whatever entity had been massacring everyone else would spare someone, so it was his only guess.

Eventually he came to high-clearance level room that the Alfred key card afforded him access to. The room was full of various computer monitors—most of which were broken beyond repair—and a glass partition between where the employees would have been keeping track of data and the strange device a floor down with spheres and various vitals and other odd information kept on little screens. He thought to check it out, but his head began to ring and the sound of shrill laughter could be heard nearby.

[Oof. Think it’s the laughing bat guy?] Joker wondered, covering his own ears like this could actually affect him. [That guy isn’t normal. I’d hate to see what happens if he actually catches you.]

They could agree on that much. Jason bolted out of the room and back down the cool hall, uncertain of how he was supposed to get away from his ghastly pursuer. As he neared the elevator, however, he noticed a seam in the cave wall that he hadn’t seen before. Knowing that the laughing Batman was hot on his trail, he pounded on the portion of the cave and felt along the edges for a means of entrance. There was nothing particular that he did that warranted it opening as it did, but he wasn’t about to look the gift horse in the mouth. He slipped inside and sealed the doorway behind him, hoping that it would at least trick the monster long enough to keep him safe.

He turned to examine the room that he’d found and nearly lost it. There was a plexiglass partition between himself and what looked like an old-fashioned office…

…no…it looked like a portion of the library from Wayne Manor had been directly transplanted into Arkham, right down to the old red chair that Jason had favored when flipping through books. And in front of it sat an electric wheelchair with a painfully familiar man resting in it, his aged eyes examining Jason in silence.

Jason’s chest hurt. He wanted to scream, but there was just no point. Joker stood by laughing at his anguish as an emaciated Alfred stared at him sadly from the other side of the glass. There was no mistaking the old butler.

“You’re…alive.” He’d always imagined that, if Bruce’s Knightfall had been the failsafe that it seemed like it would be, he’d be relieved to see at least Alfred again. But now? Now it just hurt. Now he just wanted to break through the glass and plunge a shard into the old man’s neck.

[Ooh, now isn’t that an idea? His skin looks pretty soft too. I’ll bet you could tear through it like tissue paper! Haha!]

“I know you feel lost, Master Jason, but I am not your Alfred.”

[Oof. Rough start. Now you don’t have any reason to feel guilty if you off the geezer!]

“I met your Alfred briefly. He and your Bruce came to me. They thought they could help.”

“What is that thing?” Jason asked.

[Right to the heart of the problem, eh? Do you really believe this isn’t your guy? I mean, wouldn’t that mean accepting some sort of quantum reality situation? What a pain. If there’s infinite realities, what’s the significance of this one, am I right?]

The last thing Jason wanted was to contemplate quantum physics with his hallucination.

“I came from a version of Earth where the Joker poisoned Gotham with his drug. Thousands died, and Bruce could no longer find the strength to be the better man, so he put an end to the clown.”

“So what? Even if it wasn’t on purpose, Bruce let the Joker die in this version of the world too. No big deal,” Jason argued, hating the thought that the Joker’s death could be anything but beneficial to the world.

“My Master Jason felt the same…But none of us knew that Bruce had been poisoned with a more potent version of the Joker’s drug. He called the family together shortly after the Joker’s death and…I watched him slaughter all of them with a smile on his face. There was no mercy to be had. He turned his sights on me last, determined to erase every part of what had made him Bruce Wayne, and added me to the body count.”

“And yet here you are.”

“Because, even twisted by the Joker, Bruce still saw a need for my services. He revived me and kept me…trapped. I was forced to watch as our Earth rotted away under the force of a Joker with all the intelligence and resources of the Batman.

“And then…he began seeking out other Earths. One by one he consumed them with his darkness and one by one I was left to witness the aftermath. But I didn’t remain idle in my suffering. On one version of Earth, Lex Luthor was a hero. He taught me a means of connecting to alternate Earths and contacting them. I happened to contact this Earth’s Luthor, asking for his help.

“At long, long last, we arrived at an Earth that was prepared for the Batman Who Laughs. A Batman who had given up his crusade was already ready to fight his counterpart. Unfortunately, my Master Bruce was still too demented to simply give up. In the struggle, I witnessed the death of this world’s Alfred Pennyworth. For that, I am sorry.”

Jason wanted to feel bad. He’d even go for relief at knowing the sweet man who had taken better care of him than Bruce ever could wasn’t actually involved with this mess. But instead there was a cold apathy. Bruce and Alfred were still alive after Knightfall, and they abandoned him again. Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised, but it still hurt.

“But your Bruce, he did it. He won. My journey was supposed to end there. But…something was different about your Bruce. He no longer felt the need to hold back. And so…I couldn’t stop him. He killed the Batman Who Laughs and unknowingly released the toxin that had changed my Bruce in the process. I had your Luthor contain him immediately to prevent a repeat of my Earth’s tragedy. And then, using the facilities he provided, I studied the toxin. I had hoped to cure it. But your Luthor wasn’t like the one who had helped me. My research…he didn’t tell me how he was abusing it. I had handed him the very compound that had destroyed my Earth and he proceeded to use it on the inmates of Arkham. He found that mixing the compound with a morphogenic engine allowed one to not only take on certain characteristics of an invulnerable variation of the Joker, but if one was truly compatible, they could project as a new kind of monster…I had thought…I had thought I was finally extracting the poison from your Bruce but…instead I allowed the true monster a new outlet.”

“The One Who Laughs…is Bruce?” At long last, Jason was beginning to understand the weight of the situation.

“That thing…it’s the manifested essence of my Master Bruce, projected from the Bruce Wayne of this Earth, who is trapped in a morphogenic pod, hosting the monster I should have never brought here.”

Jason swallowed a lump in his throat as he tried to process this information. “So…in order to stop the Batman Who Laughs…you want me to …”

“I know it’s asking much of you, but you’re Jason Todd. You’re the boy who faced the Joker’s worst and came back from it. It would make sense that you’re the one who would have to do this.”

Yep. Jason wanted to double over and throw up. After everything he’d been through…after the years of suffering, the years of planning his revenge on Bruce, and after finally coming to terms with it all…now he HAD to kill Bruce?

[It’s like a sick joke, isn’t it?] Joker teased, leaning over Jason’s shoulders. [Only a year ago you’d have killed for this opportunity! You’d have taken a tank through the streets to get Daddy’s attention so that you could gun him down! Haha!]

“I…It was your fault,” Jason muttered. “You made me hate him. You made me believe that he didn’t care.”

[Oh please. I only showed you the truth! I opened your eyes to who your infallible hero really was!]

“Yes, but…”

“You…you see him?”

Jason looked back at the decrepit Alfred with wide eyes, horrified to have someone recognize who he was talking to. “I…It’s not…I mean…”

“You’ve been exposed to the compound.”

“I…think?” Dick had said something like that, and Deacon Blackfire had done something to him a little while back. “Not going to lie, I’ve been haunted by that clown for longer than I can remember. It just hasn’t been this…well…visceral before.”

“I see.” He wheeled around his enclosed room contemplatively. “Yes. It makes sense. Of course you would. After all he’s done to you…”

[Pfft. Old man thinks you’re some sort of chosen one like the old Deacon! Ha! If only he knew what you were really like.]

“Go. There’s nothing left for me to tell you. Now you understand. You’re the only one who can stop this madness. You have to find your Bruce’s morphogenic pod and you have to shut it down. Only then will the monster truly be vanquished.”

[Aww, and ruin all the fun? Well, if it means finally seeing you live up to your potential, I guess it’ll be worth it.]

Jason nodded, keeping his eyes trained on the other Alfred. “Stay here. I’m not done with you.” He wasn’t sure what he meant. Did he intend to come back and punish the man? He should, right? All of this was his fault. Were it not for this Alfred, the Alfred and Bruce that he knew would still be…

No. Bruce WAS alive. It was up to Jason, now, to pull the plug.

He left the hidden room and inhaled deeply. This underground unit was pristine compared to the many floors above it. This was where the magic happened. Where the inmates were infected with a piece of the Joker and Bruce. Where they were driven even madder and then released above to wreak havoc. If he had the opportunity to get back to Luthor, he would make sure the man wouldn’t live to cause any more suffering.

Upon turning a corner, Jason came face to torso with Bane. How the monstrosity had managed to sneak around without Jason hearing him was a question he couldn’t even begin to fathom. Bane’s too big-hands wrapped around Jason’s neck and hoisted him clean off the ground, slamming his back against the stone wall hard enough that it felt like his ribcage would give against the pressure. It was all he could do to hold onto the man’s hands for dear life as he was swung around and slammed hard onto the ground.

The wind was knocked clean out of him. What few ribs were already broken now felt like they were stabbing into his lungs. And Bane’s grip on his neck remained impossibly tight. It felt like any more pressure would make his head pop and that would be it.

[Oops. Too bad, huh? Right after the old fart tells you you’re his only hope, you go and run into El Stupido here. Oh, what a world! Hahaha!]

Jason let his eyes roll up into his skull, welcoming death. Could it really be any worse than the nightmare that was Arkham?

But then the pressure was gone.

He opened his eyes and saw the ethereal, Joker-like Batman holding Bane in the air like the hulking beast weighed nothing. He cackled as he swung the man around like a rag doll, snapping his limbs against the walls and enjoying every moment of it before shoving the too-big body into the nearby air vent where a fan’s blades were still spinning. Like shoving a body into a blender, blood, flesh, globs of muscle, viscera, and fat, all exploded outward, spraying over Jason in a shower of gore. All the while the twisted parody of Batman cackled heartily and the Joker danced around in the mess in front of Jason, laughing right along with him.

“Heh.”

Bane was gone.

After what he’d done when Jason was trapped in Arkham’s basement.

After what he’d done since Jason’s return to Arkham.

The man was nothing more than a human smoothie now.

“Hahah.” Jason looked at his mutilated hands and thought about all that he’d seen since following Dick’s email back to Arkham. Pyg had tortured him, and in return he’d gotten the fat fucker crushed in the elevator. Blackfire had messed him up, and now the man was nothing more than a pile of ash in a room where Hammer and Sickle were likely to do weird shit with his remains. And now Bane, the bane of his existence here, suffered a horrible end upon finally catching Jason.

It had all been pretty fucked up…

…and somehow, pretty fucking hilarious.

The laughing Batman flew off without bothering Jason and he was left sitting in Bane’s bloody entrails. “Nothing left to do but put an end to this, huh?”

[And here I’ve been having so much fun! Maybe if you show the funny bat where the old man is he’ll give us an encore! Whaddaya say, Lil’ J?]

Jason got to his feet and wrapped one arm under his ribcage. Breathing was hard. But the fight wasn’t over. Ignoring the Joker’s ramblings, Jason made his way to the main lab where the five spheres were circled around some alien-like machine (Luthor’s style, he supposed). Two of the spheres were empty, one was completely clouded over with blood, and one was shattered open with tubes hanging out of it like the monster contained within had escaped.

The last sphere was full of cloudy liquid, but Jason could make out the silhouette of a man inside, bent wrong with tubes protruding from every orifice. There was a small screen near the pod that showed vital signs. This had to be him. Jason touched his hand to the glass. “Bruce…”

Bruce Wayne…He was no father to Jason. Jason had saved Batman’s sorry ass from the Joker on the day they first met, and as repayment, Bruce handed him over to the cops. Sure, he’d gotten Jason into a program through it that allowed him to finally get the education that he’d never received before. Maybe it was a little superficial—subjects came naturally to him, after all—but it opened a few doors. And when he finished his schooling, Bruce did come through with formal adoption papers. How he managed that when Jason knew he didn’t even have a proper birth certificate was beyond him. Still, unlike anyone who’d come before, Bruce was the first person to care. The first person to try not only to help him, but to give him a better life. Maybe it had all backfired, but it was still all he had. Were it not for Bruce, he would have probably gotten himself killed on the streets years ago, or he’d have turned out just like his good for nothing parents.

And yes, Bruce had failed him. He’d failed Jason SPECTACULARLY. Left him for dead and let him live through a fate much worse than death. But he cared. After everything…after every awful thing that Jason had done…

“I…I’m sorry it has to be like this,” Jason muttered.

[Maybe it doesn’t? Just walk away. Let that beautiful amalgamation of Batsy and myself roam free! He’s the perfect agent of chaos, don’t you think?]

{It’s okay, Son.}

Jason flinched at the sound of Bruce’s voice. He knew that it was just in his head. Yet another hallucination his broken psyche was concocting just for the occasion. It had spoken up once or twice before, but never quite as clearly. “I must have been one helluva disappointment,” Jason noted as he started to examine the machine, looking for how to shut things down. “The reckless Robin, right?”

{It wasn’t your fault.}

Jason felt choked up.

{I pushed you away. I was cold. I didn’t explain my reasons well enough and you took every lecture to heart. It’s my fault that he got you. My fault that you wound up here. We should have kept looking. I designed your suit myself. I knew that it could withstand a shotgun blast. I should have known better. I let my emotions blind me, and believed he’d taken you from me.}

[Oh, come on! Like he’d ever actually admit his faults!] Joker whined, forcing himself back into Jason’s line of sight. [Quit with the wishful thinking! He replaced you, remember? If your death was so painful for him, why would he let another brat take up the mantle?]

Jason found the main control panel and began inputting a shutdown sequence. “It doesn’t matter now,” he whispered.

The screen blinked red the moment he tried to initiate it. It showed a failsafe set up in order to protect the morphogenic pods in the event of a manual shutdown. As long as the main generator and subsequent backup generators were still running, so too would the machine.

“Shit.”

To make matters worse, there were doors on the opposite sides of the room: one had a sign that read “GENERATOR ROOM” and the other read “BACKUP GENERATORS”.

“Couldn’t just put them all in one place?”

Suddenly an awful shriek rang out. Jason covered his ears and fought against the sensation of his head splitting at the sound. The ethereal Batman had apparently recognized what he’d tried to do. No more mercy. He was now the target of the thing that handled Bane like he was nothing.

Ignoring the ever-present pain in his muscles, Jason sprinted towards the generator room like his life depended on it. He was faced with stairs that led up dangerously high. Considering the generators were likely keeping Arkham Island running, they couldn’t be too deep in the ground.

Another shriek sent chills up his spine and encouraged him to take the steps two at a time, desperate to get to the top. When he made it, he found a covered glass panel with a large kill-switch. He rammed his shoulder into the glass, ignoring the pain as it shattered around him. He grabbed the switch and forced it down. The lights around him shut off instantly before relighting with a red glow. Alarms were going off around him and a mechanic voice warned the facility that it was now running on backup generator power.

Through all the cacophony of chaos, the Batman Who Laughs screamed. It had reached the same level as Jason and it faced him. Though he couldn’t see the thing’s eyes, he could feel them burning with rage. The thing flew at him, ready to snatch him up and rip him apart. But he had enough sense to haul himself over the bars and drop down the first few flights of stairs. The landing was a bit rough, but better than the alternative. Now he was taking the stairs full flights at a time until he reached the lab floor again. The machine’s screens were showing warnings and bubbles disturbed the quiet serenity of Bruce’s pod.

Just one more. He had to make it to the backup generators.

Sprinting to the other doors Jason could feel his lungs burning. He’d stopped trying to hold his ribs in place. There was no telling what sort of damage had already been done to him internally. All he knew was that he had to get up there. Had to finish this.

Like the main generators, the backup generators were stupidly high up as well. But Jason kept moving, never losing speed. Part of the stairs had been destroyed, forcing him to jump to get across. He lunged, using his momentum to carry himself, and caught his stomach against the far side. He grunted in pain and pulled himself up, but knew better than to take a moment to recover. With the monster hot on his trail, he had no choice but to keep moving. He just had to get to the second switch. Then it would all be over.

At last he reached the top. Like the other side, there was once again a covered kill-switch. He threw himself at it, breaking through the glass, and pulled it down triumphantly with a shout. The red lights went out and darkness swallowed the area. He fell to his knees, grateful for it to finally be over.

GENERATORS OFFLINE. MORPHOGENIC ENGINE NOW RUNNING ON INTERNAL POWER.

“What?”

Spindly fingers wrapped around Jason’s neck, lifting him off the walkway. He was only able to struggle because of the sheer adrenaline still pumping through him. He could feel himself being moved so that he was past the bars. With a dark snicker, the grip on his neck was gone and he was free falling. In the darkness he reached for something, anything to latch onto and break his fall. His left arm slammed hard against one of the railing bars for the stairs, snapping on impact. He cried out just before catching the ledge of the broken stairway with his right arm. With just one arm holding on and his body screaming out in pain, he couldn’t manage to get himself back up and wound up slipping off, landing the next flight down on his back. He coughed up a mouthful of blood and shook violently.

This was bad.

He was still in imminent danger, but his body was shutting down.

Jason forced himself back onto his feet, letting his broken arm dangle uselessly at his side. He couldn’t stop shaking as he tried to find a faster pace. If the laughing Batman caught up with him again, he was certain that would be it.

He made it back to the machine and went straight to the control panel. There was already a window pop-up showing how much time was remaining with internal power and showing an option to force shutdown. He selected the force shutdown option and another pop-up came up to confirm the choice. Jason took one last look at Bruce’s pod before confirming.

The machine shut down.

But the monster remained. It flew at Jason in a blind rage, grabbing his wrists and lifting him high up into the air. It screamed at him as it began pulling his arms apart with incredible strength.

It’s okay now, Jason thought to himself. He’d done what he had to. This was the beast’s final fight. It was now in its death throes. When Bruce inevitably died in the pod, so too would the monster.

The screams continued as Jason’s broken arm was pulled from the socket. Then it seemed like its hold on him had gotten weaker. Its screams got quieter.

And then it was gone.

Jason hit the ground hard. He screamed and looked at his right leg. The foot was twisted around the wrong way. His left arm was now nothing but dead weight and he couldn’t hope to stand up. He continued to shake violently as his body accepted that it was the end. As he was, he wasn’t going to last long. His only hope was to get back to the other Alfred. Surely the man had a means of calling for help. He had to get to a hospital.

The crawl back to the underground hallway was agonizing. He could hear voices. It sounded like officers rather than inmates. People had finally come. Arkham was likely being evacuated or, hell, hopefully condemned at this point.

“Whoa, shit! There’s a survivor over here!”

Jason tried to look up. Someone was in front of him, dressed in a uniform and holding a gun. He let his head rest against the floor and waited, completely docile. There was no fight left in him.

More men joined them, along with someone in a wheelchair. Jason looked up again to see the other Alfred. “H…help…”

The other Alfred showed no emotions. No sympathy. “He’s been infected. We can’t let him leave the facility alive.”

No.

Jason’s heart sank at the sound of semi-automatic weapons going off.

“I’m sorry for the trouble, Master Jason.”

The gunfire was deafening, but brief.

[Yeesh. What a shame. And so unnecessary too. They could have just left you alone and it would have worked just as well.]

“I hoped it wouldn't come to this,” the other Alfred said, as if that changed anything.

[What was it you told the pretty bird? ‘Life’s not fair’? I’d say that’s putting it mildly. Heheh. Of course, you don’t have to be fair either. Just take my hand, Lil’ J.]

{Jason! Jason, no!}

When had listening to Bruce ever helped? Time after time, Bruce Wayne had ruined his life. Now Bruce was dead. Jason had seen to it at last. Why should he have to die with him?

*

It was a cruel thing, but Alfred had no choice. He could see the madness in Jason’s eyes. If left unchecked, the legacy of the Batman Who Laughs would go on and this Earth would be doomed to face his wrath as well. It was the only way.

But seeing one of the boys he couldn’t save filled with holes when he couldn’t even walk was difficult. “I’m so sorry, Master Jason.”

“YOU SHOULD BE!”

One by one, the private security team was lifted from the ground and torn apart. Alfred wheeled himself backwards a bit, the horrible realization overcoming him. The Bruce of that world was able to manifest through the use of the morphogenic engine, and the ethereal form he projected was impossible to kill.

This world’s Jason Todd didn’t even need the engine.

Which meant this monster couldn’t be stopped.

“What have I done?”

This entity was different from the Joker infected Bruce. It resembled the Red Hood, but the red bat insignia on his chest was upside down, as if it were a demented smile rather than a bat. There was no mask, no helmet, no band of spikes over a once iconic mantle. Instead, it was just Jason with a blood covered face, and somehow darker than the rest of the red was the letter J marring his cheek.

The laughing Red Hood stared at Alfred, laughing uncontrollably at his anguish. “I’VE NO MERCY LEFT TO GIVE.”


	11. The Red Hood Who Laughs - Dick Grayson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick finally makes it out and is left with one final decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear sweet jeezus I made it!
> 
> For everyone who hoped for a touching reunion or for the boys to make it out together and have a newfound connection in the absence of Bruce and the aftermath of a whole new kind of Arkham...sorry! This was always going to follow a more Outlast route. For all of you who've played the game, you know what I mean.
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed reading this at least as much as I've enjoyed writing it (minus that lovely time I could NOT assemble my thoughts).
> 
> As a heads up--it's something that'll take some time if I manage it--I may write a sequel-ish story for Tim based on Outlast 2! Not the near future. This took me too long to do as is and Outlast 2 is infinitely more confusing. But someday!
> 
> Anywho! Thank you for reading!

Dick awoke upon hearing a door kicked in. He rolled onto his hands and feet and struggled to stand. His whole body felt like lead, but he’d be damned if he was going to give up now. Not when he was this close.

It was apparent that some task force of sorts had finally gotten into Arkham to clean up the mess.

Unfortunately, they seemed to be doing it indiscriminately.

Not that many of the inmates deserved any sort of mercy. And what few employees remained deserved even less. Still, it was all Dick could do to keep his head down and avoid the gunfire.

The gate that Dick had finally unlocked, to his utter amazement, led back to the main hall. He was so close to the main entrance. Could he dare to dream of making it out of there alive?

His chest hurt.

Once again, he had every intention of leaving Jason behind.

But what could he do? In the state that he was in he’d be lucky to make it back to Barbara without collapsing. Staying in Arkham to search for Jason was a fool’s errand. He could hope…pray that Jason could keep it together for a week, maybe two, while he recovered. But even then…could he really bring himself to come back to this?

He reached the entrance hall and saw something painfully familiar. He went over to the check-in desk and picked up the Red Hood’s broken helmet. It was damaged beyond being usable, indicating something awful. Dick hadn’t seen Jason with his helmet, which meant that he’d abandoned it much sooner. Whatever impact had caused the breakage couldn’t have been pleasant.

The face of the helmet was split down the middle. Looking directly at it, Dick saw his own face split in two; one side bloodied and bruised from what he’d been through. The other…well the scratches made it difficult to see, but he imagined the other half must look like a monster. After all, it was his fault that Jason was back here. It would make sense for the Red Hood to see him as the monster behind it all.

“I’ll come back,” Dick decided. I’m so sorry, Jason. I’m no use to us dead, but I promise; I’ll come back. I’ll get you out of here. You’ve suffered through Arkham for so long, please, just hold on a little longer. I won’t leave you this time.”

He hugged the helmet to his chest, fighting back the tears that spilled from his eyes.

“H…help…”

Dick kept the helmet on hand, but was brought back to where he was. He shouldn’t have dropped his guard. Someone was lurking at every corner. He knew better.

But this voice was coming from the open exit.

“No way.”

Lying against the doorframe was the man of the hour: Lex Luthor himself. A wooden post protruded from his shoulder and his leg was in no condition to carry his body, but there he was, still breathing.

“Puh-please. Take me with you…” Luthor’s foggy eyes followed Dick as he approached the open doorway. “You can’t leave me like this.”

Dick struggled to breathe.

It was against everything Bruce had taught him to leave someone to die—even someone as sick as Lex Luthor. But this man was behind it all. He’d covered up what was really going on in the bowels of Arkham. He let the facility Bruce’s foundation had rebuilt be used to further his own dark agenda. After everything Dick had seen and been through…he couldn’t. He just couldn’t bring himself to feel anything but loathing for the man.

No. He didn’t have to kill Luthor, but he certainly didn’t have to save him.

And he could see his salvation ahead.

Parked out by the entrance to the island was an abandoned cab. It was easy to assume that Jason had nabbed it. It was right there, waiting for someone to step inside and drive away.

Just a little further.

But as Dick passed by the doorway, Lex sat up and, with a surprising burst of strength, jammed a pen deep into Dick’s calf—opposite of the leg that he was already struggling to walk on.

Dick collapsed and cried out as the man clawed at him, dragging him back inside and forcing him onto his back.

“YOU’LL RUIN ME! I WON’T ALLOW IT! THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS FOR YOU, BOY!”

Dick’s eyes rolled up, catching one last glimpse of the broken helmet. He was so close. Now there was no hope. Not for him and not for Jason, all because he didn’t have the heart to end Luthor himself.

“AH HA HA HA HA HA!”

The final blow never came.

Dick looked back just in time to see Luthor raised off the ground by the ghostly version of Batman…

…only this wasn’t the one Dick had come across before.

The laughter made Dick’s head swim and the images of the morphogenic engine danced into his vision, flowing like viscous liquid as Lex was ripped apart over his head. Warm blood splattered over Dick’s face and the ghost let out a pained shriek before vanishing.

And just like that, the headache faded.

Dick rolled onto his stomach and crawled out of the facility. When he reached the discarded helmet he retrieved it and struggled to his feet. His legs shook, threatening to drop him, but he willed them to carry him and Jason’s helmet back to the cab. He threw himself into the driver’s seat and sobbed for a moment before noticing the uncovered panel with the wires already ready to jump the car and go.

Dick set the still-recording camera on the dashboard, sucked in a breath, and started the car. He put it in reverse and took one last look at Arkham.

That’s when he saw it.

The ghostly entity was no longer the twisted version of Batman.

And he knew he had no further reason to return.

The One Who Laughs was Jason; his bloody face now twisted into a Joker-like grin. Dark tendrils extended from him, swallowing Arkham as he laughed.

“I’m so sorry,” Dick whispered as he slammed his foot on the gas and got the hell out of there.

*

“You press that button and there’s no going back, Dick.”

Barbara had done more than was expected of her. Dick had been detoxing for weeks before she felt the drug was safely out of his system. She went over the video recordings that he had from Arkham with a fine-toothed comb, piecing together what she could from them and his own accounts. There was one thing neither one of them could understand and that was how Alfred Pennyworth was involved.

So, Dick chose to bury that information and go after Lex Corp with everything he had.

“There’s enough hard evidence in that video file to make a world of shit for our friends at Lex Corp. But you made it off the island alive and I’ve done everything in my power to cover yours and Jason’s tracks. The fact is, even if you’re right and Luthor’s gone, his company’s still run by malicious corporate paranoiacs with resources we can’t even imagine. If they choose to retaliate, they could take everything. And they won’t just go after you. Anyone still associated with Bruce’s good name will be in danger.”

It was a sound argument. Dick knew that as he stared at the computer screen before him. Barbara, despite her fears, had compressed the videos into a single file. Dick had Lois’s email already loaded in the address bar. She would get the word out. She would expose everything. He knew that she would. And Lex Corp would likely take away everything that he had left.

“I need to know that you understand what you’re doing,” Barbara added, placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “Me, Tim, anyone left for you, we’ll just be another means for them to hurt you. You’ll do irrevocable damage to the company and just might manage to see something like justice someday. God knows I hope you do, but the moment you hit send…you may as well be forfeiting our lives.” She squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll…I’ll support you, no matter what…just…consider it…”

Dick took one last look at Jason’s broken helmet and knew what he had to do.

“Thank you, Barbara.”

CLICK!

The webpage confirmed that the email was sent, and that was that. He closed the laptop and exhaled. It was all over now.

And yet, he hoped more than anything, that this final gesture would allow Jason to finally rest at peace.


End file.
